media_artricles :: 2014

Towett chases UWI Half 'beaver'

George Towett will bid for a beaver-trick of UWI SPEC International Half-Marathon titles tomorrow.

Towett topped the men’s race in 2011, 2012 and 2013, and is keen to make it four straight and five overall. But the Kenyan-born American, who captured his first UWI Half-Marathon title in 2007, could find the going tough.

When he starts his title defence at 5.30 a.m., Towett will be in the company of Brazilians Daniel Chavez da Silva and Jose Magno Dos Santos, as well as Kenya’s Philip Lagat and Venezuela’s Luis Orta Millan.

Da Silva returned a time of one hour, three minutes, 19 seconds at the 2013 Rio de Janeiro Half-Marathon. Dos Santos has a 1:04 clocking to his name over the 13.1-mile half marathon distance. And Lagat won the 2014 Cleveland Marathon in 2:12:39. With that kind of quality in the field, the 1:05:07 course record established by Kenyan Ernest Kimeli back in 2006 is likely to be under threat.

Matthew Hagley and Curtis Cox are expected to lead the Trinidad and Tobago challenge, while the list of regional entrants includes Pamenos Ballantyne, of St Vincent and the Grenadines, T&T-based Guyanese Kelvin Johnson, and Jamaicans Kirk Brown and Rupert Green.

Organisers are expecting the largest ever field for the UWI Half-Marathon. However, reigning women’s champion Tonya Nero will not be among the 1,200 runners.

Nero won the title in 2012, but finished second to Nigerian-born American Mary Akor last year. Akor, though, was subsequently disqualified after receiving a retroactive two-year ban for a December 2012 positive drug test, and Nero was promoted to first, making her a back-to-back champion. But instead of chasing a hat-trick of titles tomorrow, the 25-year-old runner will be representing T&T in a North American, Central American and Caribbean Athletics Association (NACAC) ten-kilometre event, in Guyana. Jenelle Nedd and Richard Jones will also fly the Red, White and Black in the NACAC 10K.

In the absence of Nero, the race for the women’s title should be a two-way battle between Kenyan Caroline Kiptoo and Brazilian Cruz Nonata da Silva. With the right conditions, Kenyan Jemima Sumgong’s 1:12:08 course record, set in 2006, could be challenged. Samantha Shukla is among the T&T women entered in tomorrow’s race.

Random drug-testing will be conducted for the first time at the UWI Half-Marathon. And in another first, the race will include a Special Olympics relay, featuring athletes with intellectual disabilities.

The Half-Marathon starts and finishes outside UWI SPEC, in St Augustine. Most of the course is on the Priority Bus Route, with the turnaround at La Resource in D’Abadie.

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