It was the mid­dle-dis­tance run­ners, hur­dlers and triple jumpers chance to test their skills at the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC) Na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion of Ath­let­ics Ad­min­is­tra­tions (NAAA) se­ries and Ta­fari Wal­dron, Do­ri­an Charles and Loren­zo Luces, made the most of the op­por­tu­ni­ty. This was on Sun­day at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um in Mu­cu­rapo, Port-of-Spain.

Wal­dron of Cougars cruised to vic­to­ry in the Boys Un­der-17 3,000 me­tres, cross­ing in nine min­utes and 32.26 sec­onds to go dras­ti­cal­ly go un­der the pro­posed qual­i­fy­ing stan­dard of 9.36.30 for the up­com­ing Carif­ta Games set to take place in Bermu­da. The pre­mier youth track and field event which is tra­di­tion­al­ly held dur­ing the East­er week­end was post­poned to Ju­ly due to the coro­n­avirus (COVID-19) pan­dem­ic.

Fol­low­ing Wal­dron to the line was Omarie Thomp­son (+one A Week) in a far-off sec­ond place with 10:58.04 and Amir Math­is (To­ba­go Se­lect) in third spot with 11:37.35.  

Charles of Point Fortin Net Jets (PFNJ) al­so went un­der the pro­posed stan­dard (57.88) in the Boys U-17 400m hur­dles event, clock­ing 57.61. He com­fort­ably fin­ished ahead of Kaiyin Mor­ris of Cougars with 1:01.02.

Just as the first two test events, the meet fea­tured a con­densed track and field pro­gramme with events de­signed to min­imise ex­po­sure of both ath­letes and of­fi­cials.

Over on the field, Loren­zo Luces of To­co Tafac leaped 14.74m to win the boys Un­der-20 triple jump event ahead of Health Olympians' Jean-Jon Matthews (13.30m) and sur­passed the pro­posed qual­i­fy­ing stan­dard of 14.55m.

This was the NAAA's third test event as it con­tin­ues to pre­pare to re­sume lo­cal track and field com­pe­ti­tions. The lo­cal ath­let­ics sea­son was brought to an abrupt end in the first quar­ter of last year due to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

 There was lim­it­ed in­ter­ac­tion be­tween par­tic­i­pants as ath­letes were lim­it­ed to one event on­ly and were re­quired to va­cate the Sta­di­um im­me­di­ate­ly up­on com­ple­tion of their event.

Ac­cord­ing to the NAAA's meet sched­ule, the fourth test event is sched­uled for this com­ing week­end at the Dwight Yorke Sta­di­um in To­ba­go.

Oth­er re­sults

High Jump

Men: 1 Kris­t­ian La Touche, (Mem­phis Pi­o­neers) - 1.85m; 2 An­son Moses (To­ba­go Fal­cons) - 1.80m

Boys U-20: 1 Aaron An­toine (Neon Wolves) - 1.95m; 2 Kaleb May­nard (QRC) - 1.75m

Boys U-17: 1 Ki­mani Kent (To­ba­go Fal­cons) - 1.65m; An­tho­ny Clement (To­co Tafac) - NH

Girls U-17: 1 Gi­an­na Paul (Con­corde) - 1.55m; Ker­ne­sha Shel­bourne (Oa­sics) - NH

Triple Jump

Men (2.2 wind): 1 Kristo­pher La Touche (Mem­phis Pi­o­neers) - 14.21m

Girls U-20: 1 Shade Guy (To­co Tafac) - 8.55m

Dis­cus Throw

Men: 1 Christo­pher Craw­ford (To­ba­go Fal­cons) - 49.71m; 2 Joel An­drews (D'Abadie) - 32.85m

Boys U-20 : 1 Jaden James (Fa­ti­ma Col­lege) - 45.62m; 2 Umar Sandy (To­co Tafac) - 43.35m; 3 Ke­nan Alexan­der (Health Olympians) - 31.55m

Girls U-20: 1 Alle­sha Lind­say (To­ba­go Fal­cons) - 34.30m; 2 Es­ther Irvine (To­ba­go Fal­cons) - 34.25m

Girls U-17: 1 Adri­ana Quam­i­na (D'Abadie) - 31.45m; 2 Tshi­an No­ray (To­ba­go Fal­cons) - 27.27m; 3 Ki­mani Duke (To­ba­go Fal­cons) - 21.15m

Boys U-17: 1 Isa­iah Malchan (To­co Tafac) - 30.05m

100m Hur­dles

Girls U-20: 1 Kay­la Cae­sar (+one A Week) - 17.96; 2 Jinell Camp­bell (Ma­son Hall) - 24.93

Girls U-17: 1 Gi­an­na Paul (Con­corde) - 15.24; 2 Fa­ti­ma Springer (Cougars) - 17.19; 3 Aal­isha Jones (Oa­sics) - 20.84

110m Hur­dles

Men (4.2 wind): 1 An­son Moses (To­ba­go Fal­cons) - 15.68

Boys U-20: 1 Obi Ed­wards (FAS) - 15.81

Boys U-17: 1 Ki­mani Kent (To­ba­go Fal­cons) - 15.91; 2 Dan­ion Williams (Ma­son Hall) - 20.13; 3 Jaqwuan Fras­er (Ma­son Hall) - 20.25

800m

Men: 1 Gen­e­sis Joseph (Health Olympians) - 1:56.27; 2 Raphael James (To­ba­go Se­lect) - 1:59.56; 3 Don­nell Fran­cis (MAP) - 2:01.04

Boys U-20: 1 Cyril Sum­n­er (Mem­phis) - 1:58.90; 2 Roshane Symis­ter (To­ba­go Se­lect) - 2:03.04; 3 Ethan Forde (Cougars) - 2:03.10

Girls U-20: 1 Ar­lette Ol­livierre (To­ba­go Se­lect) - 2:36.73; 2 Oc­tavia Cam­bridge (Cougars) - 3:00.79

Boys U-17: 1 Jah­fa Wood­ley (Mem­phis) - 2:04.66; 2 Zeke Mot­t­ley (Cougars) -2:05.37; 3 Ryan Joseph (Phoenix Ath­let­ics) - 2:11.77

Girls U-17: 1 Kayleigh Forde (Cougars) - 2:28.22; 2 Ker­ne­sha Shel­bourne (Oa­sics) - 2:35.00; 3 Rashee­da Cave (Rss Phoenix) - 2:36.01

3,000m

Men: 1 Nicholas Ro­many (TTR­RC) - 9:16.79; 2 James Phillip (TTR­RC) - 9:49.92; 3 Kib­we Cromwell (UTT) - 10:58.13

Women: 1 Josanne An­toine (To­co Tafac) - 20:43.87

Boys U-20: 1 Khadeem John (+one A Week) - 9:57.08; 2 Nkosi Toney (To­ba­go Se­lect) - 9:59.67; 3 Jor­dan Ross (Fire Fit­ness) - 10:03.08

Girls U-20: 1 Zahra Gaskin (Fire Fit­ness) - 12:38.43

Girls U-17: 1 Mela­nia Nan­ton (Rjr) - 12:56.94; 2 Chelsea Fuller (Phoenix Ath­let­ics) - 14:56.88

400m Hur­dles

Boys U-20: 1 Bri­an Mor­ris (Cougars) - 59.95; 2 Keiel Year­wood (To­ba­go Se­lect) - 1:00.65; 3 Kai Mar­tin (To­ba­go Fal­cons) - 1:06.10

Girls U-20: 1 Shani­ka Bel­fon (To­ba­go Se­lect) - 1:08.75; Patrice Richards (Neon Wolves) - DNF

Girls U-17: 1 Jen­na Marie Thomas (IG Fast­lane) - 1:13.56; 2 Shanille Green (To­ba­go Fal­cons) - 1:17.71; 3 Hermione Mar­tin (IG Fast­lane) - 1:23.69