Kenyan-born Amer­i­can run­ner George Towett could not make it a beaver trick of ti­tles yes­ter­day at the 11th edi­tion of the UWI SPEC In­ter­na­tion­al Half-Marathon af­ter suf­fer­ing with a ham­string in­jury, but his wife Car­o­line Kip­too cap­tured the women's ti­tle to con­tin­ue the fam­i­ly's dom­i­nance of the event.

Towett has en­joyed run­ning in Trinidad, win­ning the men's crown for the past three years. Towett suf­fered ham­string prob­lems af­ter ap­prox­i­mate­ly four miles and could not com­plete the race. He was very dis­ap­point­ed af­ter the race, but was hap­py his wife won the women's ti­tle. Kip­too, rep­re­sent­ing Kenya, fin­ished ahead of Brazil­ian Cruz Nona­to Da Sil­va and Colom­bian Linei­da Madeus Ro­jas.

Twin sis­ters Chris­telle and Christi­na Lau­rent from Guade­loupe round­ed off the top five. The first T&T woman to fin­ish was Saman­tha Shuk­la, who end­ed in sixth place.

Brazil­ian Daniel Chavez Da Sil­va won the men's ti­tle com­fort­ably in one hour, eight min­utes and 26 sec­onds. Towett's win­ning time last year was 1:06:22. Ja­maican Ru­pert Green im­proved on his fourth place ef­fort last year to fin­ish sec­ond in 1:09:03. Round­ing off the top three was Kenyan Philip La­gat in 1:10:05.

Cur­tis Cox, Kade Sobers and Elvis Turn­er were the top T&T run­ners, fin­ish­ing sixth, sev­enth and eighth re­spec­tive­ly. Vet­er­an Pa­menos Bal­lan­tyne from St Vin­cent al­so cracked the top ten, fin­ish­ing ninth.

Af­ter the race Da Sil­va praised the or­gan­is­ers say­ing: "The race was nice, every mile had wa­ter, every­thing was per­fect for me, the or­ga­ni­za­tion (of the event) was amaz­ing, I like to run in Trinidad."

Da Sil­va said he loved the sup­port through­out the race and felt at the halfway point he had an op­por­tu­ni­ty to win.

A high­light of the event was St Ann's res­i­dent Charles Spoon­er, who at 90 com­pet­ed in his ninth con­sec­u­tive UWI half marathon. Spoon­er seems to be get­ting bet­ter with age, im­prov­ing on his time by 16 min­utes from last year.

RE­SULTS

Men

1 Daniel Chavez Da Sil­va � Brazil � 1:08:26

2 Ru­pert Green � Ja­maica � 1:09:03

3 Philip La­gat � Kenya � 1:10:05

4 Jose Mag­no Dos San­tos � Brazil � 1:10:37

5 Kirk Brown � Ja­maica � 1:11:28

6 Cur­tis Cox � T&T

7 Kade Sobers � T&T

8 Elvis Turn­er � T&T

9 Pa­menos Bal­lan­tyne � St Vin­cent

10 Robin Rowe � Ja­maica

Women

1 Car­o­line Kip­too � Kenya

2 Cruz Nona­to Da Sil­va � Brazil

3 Linei­da Madeus Ro­jas � Colom­bia

4 Chris­telle Lau­rent � Guade­loupe

5 Christi­na Lau­rent - Guade­loupe

6 Saman­tha Shuk­la �T&T

7 Chris­tine Reg­is � T&T

8 Juli­et John-Som­bra­no � T&T

9 Leisl Puck­erin � T&T

10 Sha­nia Fran­cis � T&T