Clay­ton Clarke

Tonya Nero will be T&T's lone rep­re­sen­ta­tive at the 20th IAAF World Half Marathon Cham­pi­onships in Kavar­na, Bul­gar­ia on Oc­to­ber 6.

The 23-year-old dis­tance run­ner will leave for Bul­gar­ia to­mor­row and will be aim­ing to im­prove her na­tion­al half-marathon mark of 1:15:42. "My goal is to run about 1:13. I feel I can do it. I am hop­ing the weath­er con­di­tions will be favourable and I an­tic­i­pate the com­pe­ti­tion will be great." The mul­ti­ple na­tion­al record hold­er told the Trinidad Guardian that she has been prepar­ing for the race. "Train­ing has been good. I spent some time (from the end of Ju­ly to Sep­tem­ber 14) work­ing out with my for­mer uni­ver­si­ty team-mates at Wi­chi­ta State (in Kansas, USA). I will be do­ing some easy runs (6-8 miles) be­fore I leave on Wednes­day." Nero in­di­cat­ed that since her re­turn to Trinidad ear­li­er this year she has been coached by NAAA Sec­re­tary Al­lan Ba­boolal and Trustee Paul Voisin. Ba­boolal will ac­com­pa­ny her to Bul­gar­ia as her coach/man­ag­er. Nero will be aim­ing to im­prove on the 54th plac­ing by Sher­min Lasal­do at the 2007 edi­tion in Udine, Italy.

Ba­boolal said Nero was the lone ath­lete se­lect­ed. "Tonya was the on­ly ath­lete close to in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dard." Top lo­cal run­ners Richard Jones and Cur­tis Cox were not con­sid­ered. Jones rep­re­sent­ed Trinidad and To­ba­go at three cham­pi­onships in 2005 (Ed­mon­ton, Cana­da), 2007 (Udine, Italy) and 2008 (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) with his best per­for­mance in Rio (71st -1:13.01). Nero, a for­mer stu­dent of AS­JA Girls Col­lege, is a re­cip­i­ent of the Min­istry of Sports' Elite Fund­ing As­sis­tance Pro­gramme since May and holds na­tion­al records in women's out­door 5,000m, 10,000m half marathon and marathon and the in­door 3,000m and 5,000m events. The Mara­cas-res­i­dent was sev­enth in the women's 10,000m fi­nals at the 2011 NCAA Di­vi­sion One Out­door Cham­pi­onships and 13th in the 5,000m fi­nals at the 2011 NCAA In­door Cham­pi­onships. In March ear­li­er this year Nero cre­at­ed his­to­ry when she be­came the first lo­cal woman to win an in­di­vid­ual medal at the North Amer­i­can, Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean Cross Coun­try Cham­pi­onships tak­ing sec­ond place in the se­nior women's race at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain. She lat­er missed out qual­i­fy­ing for the Lon­don Olympics in the women's marathon when she ran 2:43:45 (a na­tion­al record) in Rot­ter­dam in April, miss­ing the Olympic B mark of 2:43.00.