Leah So­rias

Chief judge of the In­ter­na­tion­al So­ca Monarch Com­pe­ti­tion Roland Gor­don suf­fered a stroke ear­ly yes­ter­day morn­ing.

Gor­don, who ad­ju­di­cat­ed the se­mi-fi­nal round of the com­pe­ti­tion on Sun­day, col­lapsed at his home and was rushed to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex where he re­mained ward­ed up to late yes­ter­day. A rel­a­tive said yes­ter­day Gor­don was un­able to speak and could not use the right side of his body. Gor­don's son, Ro­drique "Chucky" Gor­don, con­tact­ed around 2 pm, said his fa­ther was still un­der­go­ing sev­er­al tests by doc­tors. "He is ok, no change re­al­ly, but he is ok," Ro­drique not­ed.

Gor­don, a promi­nent ca­lyp­so com­pe­ti­tion judge, arranger and mu­si­cal di­rec­tor of the Mal­ick Folk Per­form­ing Com­pa­ny, sat for over nine hours at the Ari­ma Velo­drome, on Sun­day, as 83 so­ca artistes vied to get in­to the So­ca Monarch fi­nals. The show start­ed at 5.45 pm and fin­ished at 3 am. Chair­man of the Caribbean Pres­tige Foun­da­tion, William Munroe, said the re­sults of the semi­fi­nals were com­plet­ed but be­cause of Gor­don's sud­den ill­ness it could not be de­liv­ered to him (Munroe) yes­ter­day.

He said he ex­pect­ed to have the names of the fi­nal­ists by to­day. "He (Gor­don) has to fo­cus on get­ting bet­ter," Munroe said. A meet­ing was ex­pect­ed to be held with stake­hold­ers of the show last night to dis­cuss the judg­ing pan­el for the fi­nals on Fan­tas­tic Fri­day (Feb­ru­ary 12) at the Queen's Park Oval, from 9 30 pm. Reign­ing Groovy and Pow­er So­ca Monarch, Fay-Ann Lyons-Al­varez, will de­fend her crown.