Ryan Ba­choo

Lead Ed­i­tor-News­gath­er­ing

ryan.ba­choo@cnc3.co.tt

The High Com­mis­sion of Ja­maica in Trinidad and To­ba­go cel­e­brat­ed Eman­ci­pa­tion Day as well as Ja­maica’s up­com­ing In­de­pen­dence Day with a 5k run around the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, St Clair, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day.

Ja­maica will cel­e­brate its 63rd an­niver­sary of in­de­pen­dence on Au­gust 6.

Na­tal­ie Camp­bell-Ro­driguez, High Com­mis­sion­er for Ja­maica to Trinidad and To­ba­go and Per­ma­nent Rep­re­sen­ta­tive to the As­so­ci­a­tion of Caribbean States, said, “We thought this year, in keep­ing with the Ja­maica Moves move­ment, which is in Ja­maica, keep­ing healthy, know­ing your num­bers, and keep­ing the body mov­ing, we thought this would be an ap­pro­pri­ate thing to do. This is the in­au­gur­al 5K event, and we’re hop­ing to make this an an­nu­al event.”

The cel­e­bra­tions will con­tin­ue to­day. She added, “To­mor­row [to­day] we’ll have a church ser­vice where, as Ja­maicans, we go and wor­ship and say thanks for what has hap­pened so far and seek bless­ings for what will come in the fu­ture.”

She en­cour­aged those who would like to sup­port or par­tic­i­pate in next year’s event to get in touch with the Ja­maica High Com­mis­sion on New­bold Street.

She fur­ther stat­ed, “I’m a run­ner—well, I tell my­self that. When I see my­self on film, I don’t look as good as I do in my head, but it doesn’t mat­ter. I keep my body mov­ing, and it was great just be­ing out there and know­ing that all these peo­ple are do­ing it to cel­e­brate the “Emancipen­dence” of Ja­maica. It felt re­al­ly good out there this morn­ing. The weath­er was good. It wasn’t too hot. I think we hit the time right, and so next year it’s go­ing to be the same time ear­ly in the morn­ing.”

Win­ning the 5K race was Guswil George from the Trinidad and To­ba­go Road Run­ners club. Com­ing in sec­ond was Narvin Be­har­ry, and Ruthven Kur­banali was third. Among the fe­males, Aqiy­la Gomez from En­durance Elite run­ning club placed first, in sec­ond place was Ale­sha Bar­ber from Medal Chasers, and third was Char­maine Dook­ie of Tec­ton­ic Fit­ness.

Among the male over-50s, Vic­tor Hugo Morales of the Mex­i­can em­bassy came first. Neil Choon placed sec­ond, and the Ko­re­an am­bas­sador, Sei­joong Kwon, was third. Among oth­er mem­bers of the diplo­mat­ic corps present were the French am­bas­sador and the Aus­tralian High Com­mis­sion­er.