media_artricles :: 2014

Kenyan to bid for 5th UWI Half-Marathon crown

Kenyan George Towett will attempt to win his fourth straight consecutive title and his fifth overall when the 2014 University of The West Indies Sports and Physical Education Centre (UWI SPEC) International Half-Marathon comes off October 26 from 5.30 a.m.

The line-up for the 11th edition of the 13.1-mile event includes Towett and 15 other seeded male runners as part of the expected 1,100 entrants for this year’s race. Besides Towett, the top seeded foreign runners are Brazil’s Daniel Chavez Da Silva, Towett’s countryman Philip Lagat and Venezuela’s Manuel Bellorin.

On the women’s side, T&T’s top female distance runner Tonya Nero, the 2012 and 2013 champion, leads a list of six seeded female runners, including Kenya’s Caroline Kiptoo and Colombia’s Lineita Madeus Rojas.

Major David Benjamin, race director, said yesterday at the office of the campus principal, St Augustine, this year organisers teamed up with the Special Olympics of Trinidad and Tobago as part of The UWI’s 2014 operational plan.

“We believe that this is a well chosen partner as Special Olympics epitomises the virtues of perseverance, acceptance and self-belief; all qualities that we at The UWI espouse,” Benjamin said.

He added that the Special Olympic teams will be represented by special schools taking part in a relay marathon for the 13.1-mile event with 12 athletes per team running equal legs.

There will also be a prize division for all Special Olympics teams participating.

Other key features of the race, Benjamin identified, are a 20-minute earlier starting time; the increase to 1,100 spots, the maintenance of the course’s traffic free status and the featuring of pan-around-the-neck steelpan and tassa drumming along the race route.

The presenting sponsor is First Citizens, a stalwart of support for the race over the last decade, and the bank was represented at yesterday’s launching by Jason Julien, general manager of First Citizens Investment Services. Pro vice chancellor and campus principal Prof Clement Sankat also addressed the gathering

Registration ends on October 10, or once 1,100 athletes have registered.

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