Clay­ton Clarke

For­mer dou­ble Carif­ta cham­pi­on Mark Lon­don will seek to main­tain his un­beat­en streak at the NAAA Mt Irvine Cross Coun­try leg lat­er to­day at the Mt Irvine Golf Course, To­ba­go. Lon­don will be go­ing for this third win af­ter tak­ing the 2009 race (6K-24:35) and 2010 (4k-14:44). Last year the Bish­op sixth form stu­dent beat vet­er­an dis­tance run­ner Elvis Turn­er (15:02) and na­tion­al 800m record hold­er Sher­ri­dan Kirk (15:23) for the ti­tle. The 2010 Carif­ta boys un­der 17 1500/3000 cham­pi­on will face Turn­er again who fin­ished 22nd last month in UWI SPEC In­ter­na­tion­al Half marathon. The Mt Irvine leg is the open­ing race of the 2011 NAAA Cross Coun­try se­ries.

The first event on the day is the 2K (one lap) run for un­der 15 ath­letes and is card­ed for 2 pm to­day, with the 6k (three laps) race set for 2.30 pm. To­day's race will al­so be used to crown the To­ba­go Sec­ondary Schools Cross Coun­try Cham­pi­ons. Javin Roberts (Good­wood High) and Ed­son Moses (Bish­ops High) are ex­pect­ed to chal­lenge for the boys' ti­tle while twin sis­ters Aman­da and An­to­nia Paul (Good­wood High) are among those to watch in the girls' race. The sec­ond stop of the NAAA se­ries is on No­vem­ber 19 at the Sevil­la Golf Course in Cou­va with the Na­tion­al Cross Coun­try Cham­pi­onships sched­uled for No­vem­ber 27 at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah op­po­site the Queen's Roy­al Col­lege.

Jones, Mc Shine for sec­ond win

T&T's Richard Jones and Ke­ma Mc Shine will go for back-to-back wins in the North Amer­i­can, Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean NACAC 10K Road races se­ries in Fort-de France, Mar­tinique to­mor­row.

Jones cap­tured the men's race at the third leg at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, Trinidad on Oc­to­ber 25 in 32:48 while Mc Shine copped the ladies ti­tle in 39:48 beat­ing out the win­ner of the legs, Ruth Ann David (US Vir­gin Is­lands). In Mar­tinique Jones will be up against an­oth­er lo­cal run­ner Matthew Ha­gley who won the sec­ond leg (34:21) in Tor­to­la, British Vir­gin Is­lands on Oc­to­ber 8. Ha­gley was fifth be­hind Jones at the Sa­van­nah. Mc Shine will be aim­ing to get to the line ahead of David in the chal­leng­ing course. Events co­or­di­na­tor Do­minique Pom­pee of Mar­tinique told the Trinidad and To­ba­go Guardian that there had been a change to the sched­ule as Do­mini­ca leg had been pushed back from No­vem­ber 27 to De­cem­ber 18. The se­ries moves to Grena­da on De­cem­ber 11.