The 2012 Sec­ondary Schools 5K Cross Coun­try Cham­pi­onships will be staged for the sec­ond year on the grass sur­face of the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah on Sun­day, start­ing and fin­ish­ing op­po­site TGI Fri­day, Stan­more Ave.

Carif­ta 800m 2012 gold medal­list and 1,500 bronze medal­list Mark Lon­don of Bish­op's High School, To­ba­go will duke it out with the oth­er top young dis­tance run­ners in the coun­try. The field in­cludes last year's cham­pi­on Akeem Mar­shall (win­ning time 16 min­utes 34 sec­onds) of To­co Sec­ondary (soon to be re-named Keshorn Wal­cott Sec), Jevon Joseph of Bel­mont Sec­ondary, Jean-Paul Drakes of Trin­i­ty East and Mt Hope Sec­ondary's 15-year-old Matais Nero who is the youngest broth­er of Tonya Nero, fe­male cham­pi­on of last Sun­day's UWI SPEC Half-Marathon.

Among the fe­males, the bat­tle for ho­n­ours will be among de­fend­ing cham­pi­on Donicia An­toine (win­ning time 20:21) of To­co Sec­ondary, Na­toya Cud­joe of Suc­cess Laven­tille Sec­ondary, Mikay­la Ot­t­ley of To­co and 400m ath­lete Elia Nero of Sixth Form Poly­tech­nic.

To­co emerged as the cham­pi­on school team in both the male and fe­male cat­e­gories last year. The cham­pi­on school team is de­ter­mined by adding the places of the top five fin­ish­ers from each school with the low­est score win­ning. In­di­vid­ual prizes are award­ed in the cat­e­gories: Open, Un­der-14, Un­der-15, Un­der-17 and 17 and over.

This cross coun­try is or­gan­ised by the T&T Sec­ondary Schools Track & Field As­so­ci­a­tion and is the first of the four events com­pris­ing the Sec­ondary Schools Ath­let­ic Fes­ti­val.