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Jun 16, 2011 Sports
– Forde, Pompey, lead five-member CAC squad
By Edison Jefford
Rupert Perry leads three new faces among a five-member team that was shortlisted sometime this week to compete at one of the most-anticipated regional track and field competitions, the Central American and Caribbean (CAC) Championships.
The current national senior sprint champion heads a list of debutants that also include his rival on the sprint circuit locally, Winston George and field events standout, Leslain Baird. The other two athletes on the team are, Cleveland Forde and Aliann Pompey.
The 2011 CAC Championships is billed for the city of Mayaguez, Puerto Rico, July 15-17. It has long been one of the highest forums for competition in the region and will greatly test the reserve of Perry and his local counterparts, who will be exposed to top athletes.
However, with seasoned campaigners, Forde and Pompey, who are very familiar with the thin-air conditions of Mayaguez, and who are both included on the team, Perry, George and Baird should be able to overcome some of the challenges of the competition.
Forde competed at the CAC Games last year and won a bronze medal while Pompey snapped up silver in the Women’s 400m. Perry, especially, will look to improve Guyana’s medal haul at this meet with his sub-21 seconds 200m times on grass tracks in Guyana.
Both Perry and George has had overseas exposure on rubber tracks since they emerged following the retirement of Rawle Greene, who had dominated sprinting in Guyana for over a decade.
They represented their institutions, the Guyana Defence Force and the Guyana Police Force at separate meets in Trinidad and Tobago consistently over the last year.
The two met for the first time in a major race on Sunday in the Men’s 200m with Perry holding a surging George down the back-straight to second place. Perry’s time was 21.10 seconds that one could assume was good enough to convince the Selection Committee of the Athletic Association of Guyana (AAG) to name him on a national team. George ran 21.40 seconds, but has had one of the most impressive emergences of a local sprinter in Guyana.
The AAG National Junior and Senior Championships on Sunday was an established yardstick for national selection. Baird dominated the field events last weekend.
He, like Natasha Alder has had an impressive sojourn as field athletes over the last year. Alder is the current AAG Sportswoman of the Year, which exemplified her dominance in the field locally.
However, the athletic association found no space for the female field athlete on its national team.
Up to Kaieteur Sport press time, the association had not yet identified who will manage, and who will coach, the senior national track and field team in Puerto Rico.
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