North West Zone, which in­clud­ed re­cent Carif­ta Games medal­lists Shani­qua Bas­combe, Dy­lan Woodruffe, Kayleigh Forde, and Troy Llanos, to name a few, emerged with top ho­n­ours at the Re­pub­lic Bank/Na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion of Ath­let­ics Ad­min­is­tra­tions of T&T (NAAATT) Re­lay Fes­ti­val, on Sun­day.

They were all part of the ex­cite­ment which fea­tured teams rep­re­sent­ing four zones, the oth­ers be­ing To­ba­go, North East and South-Cen­tral, mak­ing turns with the ba­ton around the track at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo.

Some 400 ath­letes raced in 29 re­lay events at the Fes­ti­val, which was last held in 2019 but ow­ing to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic had to be can­celled in 2020 and 2021.

And at the end of it all, North West was crowned the cham­pi­on with 242 points fol­lowed by North East, in the run­ners-up po­si­tion with 202 points, third was South Cen­tral with 197 points and To­ba­go in fourth with 60 points.

Kelvin Nan­coo, the co­or­di­na­tor of the North West, was thrilled by the dom­i­nant dis­play by the zone, whose colours were white (Team A) and turquoise (Team B).

“I am very hap­py with the per­for­mance of the North-West Team. They were awe­some!” said Nan­coo, who is the head coach at the Cougars track and field club.

“This was a won­der­ful team per­for­mance and goes to show when you put in the work, what the re­sult could be. I must say that the Games brought out the best in our ath­letes and the com­pe­ti­tion was very keen. Any­one who was not at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um on Sun­day missed a treat. That was a mem­o­rable day.

“Their per­for­mances kept the largest crowd for some time at the fa­cil­i­ty cheer­ing. The ca­ma­raderie be­tween the ath­letes was ex­cel­lent and I wish to thank all the coach­es of our six clubs for their as­sis­tance and sup­port. How­ev­er, I must thank specif­i­cal­ly Don­nelle Stafford my as­sis­tant for her role in en­sur­ing vic­to­ry. Thanks again Don­nelle and thank you, North-West Zone, you proved you are the best.

“I am, in­deed, proud to have been al­lowed to work with you. Let’s keep the T&T flag fly­ing at the up­com­ing World Youth Cham­pi­onship and the Com­mon­wealth Games.”

North West quar­tet of Forde, Omare Thomp­son, Aniqah Bai­ley and Llanos set the tone of the meet, win­ning the open­ing race, the mixed 4x800 me­tres in a time of eight min­utes and 55.36 sec­onds ahead of the North West B team of Shaki­ah Phillip, Jah­fa Wood­ley, Chantel Le Maitre and Ste­fan Came­jo with 9:27.16 and To­ba­go’s Shaun Parisi­enne, Za­ck La Rosa, An­gel David­son and Os­hea Ca­bie with 9:36.83.

Bas­combe and her team of Reneisha An­drews, Nick­ili Lewis and Joshua Williams fol­lowed up soon af­ter with vic­to­ry in the open mixed 800m sprint med­ley (1x1x2x4) win­ning with 1:35.38. They beat to the line, re­spec­tive­ly, the South Cen­tral quar­tet of Ka­maria Du­rant, Mauri­cia Pri­eto, Je­re­my Charles and Aaron Car­dinez (1:36.76) and the South Cen­tral B team of Jay­celle Bai­ley, Danae David, Sha­keel Fran­cis and Ty­la Austin (1:37.40).

Bas­combe and An­drews were al­so part of the cham­pi­on women’s 4x100m team which al­so in­clud­ed Caliyah Wal­lace and Ka­res­sa Kir­ton. They won in 45.74 ahead of South Cen­tral (Danae David, Du­rant, Kyah La For­tune, Pri­eto) in 45.52 and North East (Sap­phire John, Kadi­ja Pick­er­ing, Christiemarie Ma­haraj, Chelsea Bartholomew) in 48.27.

Woodruffe helped the North West team, which al­so fea­tured Khadeem Ryan, Tahir Chance and Ja­mario Rus­sell, nab gold in the boys’ Un­der-17 4x100m with 43.04. North West ‘B’ (Markey Davis, Joshua Per­ry, Tyrell Springer, Den­zel Williams) copped sil­ver with 44.38 and bronze was bagged by North East (Enoch Joseph, An­der­son Barn­well, Dae­shaun Cole, Je­re­mi­ah Fran­cis) with 44.51.

There were even more clos­er con­test­ed races like in the men’s 4x400m but this time it was North East (Jyasi Mur­ray, Avin­dale Smith, Kird­ell Mc In­tosh, Ken­gel Christo­pher) cross­ing first with 3:16.09, fol­lowed close be­hind by South Cen­tral (Sha­keel Fran­cis, Chazz Alexan­der, Rogill Tor­res, Nyame An­drews) with 3:16.61 and a far-off third North East Zone ‘B’ (Nicholas Dray­ton, Jasi­ah Franklyn, Jamelle Don­ald, Eli­jah Joseph) with 3:22.63.

And of course the fi­nal event on day’s pro­gramme, the men’s 4x200m re­lay, North West’s Ariel Kerr, Josi­ah Wil­son, Nick­ili Lewis and Omari Lewis sprint­ed to gold in a time of 1:27.20 edg­ing North East team of Christo­pher, Eli­jah Joseph, Mc In­tosh and Mur­ray (1:27.22) at the line. In third place was South Cen­tral (Nyame An­drews, Malachi Hey­wood, Chazz Alexan­der, Cyrus Charles) 1:28.14.

Spe­cial in­vi­ta­tion­al races for the pro­tec­tive ser­vices were in­clud­ed on the sched­ule and pa­trons were not dis­ap­point­ed by see­ing the lo­cal ser­vice­men and women in ac­tion. See re­sults be­low.