Clay­ton Clarke

Lo­cal dis­tance run­ning queen Tonya Nero will be go­ing for gold in the 26th In­ter­na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion of Ath­let­ics Fed­er­a­tions (IAAF) World Half Marathon Cham­pi­onships in Kavar­na, Bul­gar­ia, lat­er to­day. Nero is among the 67 starters in the women's race set for 9.30 am (Bul­gar­ia time; 2.30 am TT time). The 23-year-old is the lone lo­cal and Caribbean en­trant in the 13.1 mile race. The na­tion­al record hold­er (1:15.42) will face some of the world's elite dis­tance run­ners in­clud­ing 2008 Olympic 5,000 and 10,000 sil­ver medal­list El­van Abeylegesse of Turkey.

The Kenyan run­ners are ex­pect­ed to con­tin­ue their dom­i­nance at the event af­ter they won 2010 and 2011 in­di­vid­ual races and the last five team ti­tles. Pas­calia Kip­koech, Ly­dia Cheromei, Prisc­ah Cherono and Pauline Ka­hey­na are among the favourites. Amer­i­can Sha­lene Flana­gan is al­so a con­tender and along with Feyse Tadese (Ethopia).

Nero will be hop­ing to im­prove on her na­tion­al record. Speak­ing be­fore her de­par­ture she said she would be look­ing to run close to 1:13.00. The Wi­chi­ta Uni­ver­si­ty, USA, grad­u­ate is al­so aim­ing at bet­ter­ing Sher­min Lasal­do's 54th plac­ing at the 2007 Cham­pi­onships in Udine, Italy. Lasal­do had clocked a then na­tion­al record of 1:25.37. Nero holds na­tion­al records in women's out­door 5000m, 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. Nero is the sole na­tion­al run­ner in Bul­gar­ia. Top dis­tance men Richard Jones and Cur­tis Cox were not se­lect­ed. Jones com­pet­ed in three pre­vi­ous cham­pi­onships (2005, 2006 and 2008) while Cox ran in two (2005, 2006).

Team man­ag­er/coach Al­lan Ba­boolal said the NAAA felt Nero was the "on­ly lo­cal ath­lete that close to in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dards." A to­tal of US$245,000 in prize mon­ey will be on of­fer with the win­ners set to col­lect $30,000 and the top team $15,000. Any ath­lete sur­pass­ing a world record will be award­ed $50,000.

World Half-Marathon Cham­pi­onships-T&T

2009 Birm­ing­ham, Eng­land

89 Ron­nie Ho­lassie 1:11.18

2008 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

71 Richard Jones 1:13:01

2007 Udine, Italy

54 Sher­min Lasal­do 1:25:37

56 Chris­tine Reg­is 1:28:50

75 Richard Jones 1:10:17

78 Cur­tis Cox 1:14.51

79 Jules La Rode 1:14:52

2005 Ed­mon­ton, Cana­da

73 Cur­tis Cox 1:14:52

77 Richard Jones 1:17:30

89 Michael Alexan­der 1:24.07