Clay­ton Clarke

To­mor­row's UWI SPEC half marathon is billed to be one of the best ever as six top in­ter­na­tion­al run­ners are ex­pect­ed face the starter's gun.Race of­fi­cial An­tho­ny Har­ford said it is the first time in the eight year his­to­ry of the race that there are six top class ath­letes com­ing for the 13.1 mile run."We have three men and three women com­ing from abroad. On the men's side we have George Towett, who was in­cred­i­ble when he won here in 2007. We al­so have Stephen Tanui, an up and com­ing Kenyan run­ner and then we have Guyana's Cleve­land Forde," he said. "When you add the Caribbean run­ners in the men's di­vi­sion the race will be ex­treme­ly com­pet­i­tive. Among the ladies, there is a fourth woman from Hous­ton who was not in­vit­ed but she de­cid­ed to come and run," he stat­ed.

Har­ford, a vet­er­an sport ad­min­is­tra­tor, is hail­ing the UWI SPEC as one of the mar­quee races in the re­gion."With­out reser­va­tion this is per­haps the most im­por­tant road race in the Caribbean. It is the most es­tab­lished and ac­com­plished and cer­tain­ly the most pro­fes­sion­al­ly run event across the re­gion. It is al­so the on­ly run on a traf­fic-free course in the Caribbean," he said.Har­ford cred­its the ex­ten­sive plan­ning as the rea­son for the suc­cess of the race. "The UWI SPEC is not short of plan­ning."Race Di­rec­tor Lystra Fran­cis said the en­tire UWI, St Au­gus­tine, Cam­pus is in­volved in the race. "We have the bless­ing of the man­age­ment of the uni­ver­si­ty. We have the Arthur Lock Jack stu­dents who are pur­su­ing Event Man­age­ment who are us­ing the race to gain cred­its. This year we have the UWI Steel Or­ches­tra who will play­ing at the fin­ish line."

Fran­cis said spe­cial arrange­ments are be­ing made for run­ners who may have to trav­el ear­ly to get to the race be­fore the cur­few hours are over."Run­ners can take their num­bers to the po­lice sta­tion to get a pass," she said.The race starts at 6 am in front of UWI SPEC on St Au­gus­tine Cir­cu­lar Road and heads on to the Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route where the run­ners will run east up to La Re­source in D'Abadie and head back to the UWI SPEC for the fin­ish.

2010 re­sults

Men

1 Si­mon Sawe Kenya/USA 1:07:08

2 Al­fon­so Yatich Kenya 1:08:31

3 Richard Jones Trinidad and To­ba­go 1:09:13

4 Den­zil Ramirez Trinidad and To­ba­go 1:09:13

5 Zepher­i­nus Joseph St Lu­cia 1:10:01

Women

1 Fi­raya Zhadano­va Rus­sia 1:23:51

2 Yeisy Al­varez Venezuela 1:25:13

3 Sher­min Lasal­do Trinidad and To­ba­go 1:30:47

4 Paulette Luces Trinidad and To­ba­go 1:31:48

5 Ce­line Lestrade Trinidad and To­ba­go 1:31:55