Nicholas Ro­many sped to vic­to­ry in the Fui Toong On As­so­ci­a­tion 7K on a very hot af­ter­noon in Port-of-Spain on Sun­day.

The 29-year-old won the com­pet­i­tive road race in a time of 22.00 min­utes, nar­row­ly ahead of Kenya's Alex Eke­sa. The 40-year-old Kenyan was sec­ond with 22.03.

Ro­many, the Cari­com 10K cham­pi­on, not on­ly won the first place prize of $3,000 and tro­phy but al­so the Bar­ba­dos Tourism Mar­ket­ing Inc all-ex­pens­es-paid trip to this year's Run Bar­ba­dos Marathon.

"I think Chi­na­town 7K was a suc­cess. I en­joyed this ex­pe­ri­ence be­cause I'm from Mar­aval and I train here all the time I run from Mar­aval to town to the Sa­van­nah and back home So this is like my home­town I would say. I know the area so I was glad it was in Port-of-Spain," said the beam­ing win­ner. "I just love run­ning I love sports, ever since I'm small I love com­pet­ing against peo­ple. I just love the com­pe­ti­tion I en­joyed this."

Fol­low­ing Ro­many and Eke­sa to the line was reig­in­ing Carif­ta 5,000m gold medal­list Ta­fari Wal­dron. The 17-year-old clocked 22.53 to fin­ish third in an event which fea­tured some 1,700 par­tic­i­pants rac­ing through the streets of Port-of-Spain. The turnout pleased Coun­selor Yang Han Charge d'Af­fairs Em­bassy of Chi­na to T&T.

He said "It is heart­warm­ing to wit­ness peo­ple of all gen­er­a­tions and from all walks of life of the city em­brac­ing this event. For us, it's an ex­cit­ing mo­ment. I think every­one to­day is a win­ner. So many cit­i­zens have won their medals. Look­ing to the fu­ture, I think our em­bassy will con­tin­ue to work with the Chi­nese com­mu­ni­ty and lo­cal in­sti­tu­tions to con­tribute to the ami­ty and the well­be­ing of peo­ple of our two na­tions."

Saman­tha Shuk­la was one of those win­ners, dom­i­nat­ing the women's cat­e­go­ry.

"It was a good ex­pe­ri­ence," said Shuk­la, who was look­ing for­ward to hav­ing the race in the heart of Port-of-Spain. "It was re­al­ly a plea­sure and I re­al­ly want­ed to win be­cause I know that peo­ple, you know the lo­cals would be here, to see all the run­ners. I want­ed them to have that pride of see­ing some­one from Trinidad win­ning the race."

And that she did, cross­ing the fin­ish line in 29.16 sec­onds ahead of St Vin­cent & the Grenadines' (SVG) Lin­da Mc­Dowall, who was sec­ond with 31.09 while 10-year-old Chen­nai Moore of San­gre Grande was third with 31.22.

Jen­neil Fred­er­ick, Coun­cil­lor St Ann's Riv­er South, was al­so thrilled to be a part of the oc­ca­sion and ex­pects the road race to be an­nu­al event.

She said: "I must say this is a mo­men­tous ex­pe­ri­ence hav­ing wit­nessed the Fui Toong On As­so­ci­a­tion hav­ing their 7K. They have re­al­ly brought the city to life on a Sun­day and I say ku­dos to them. It re­al­ly is a great ex­pe­ri­ence and per­sons from all parts of T&T are here to­day (Sun­day) to ex­pe­ri­ence this event. I must say I am proud and this is some­thing the city would look for­ward to every year."

The As­so­ci­a­tion, via a re­lease, ex­pressed its ap­pre­ci­a­tion for the sup­port of the po­lice ser­vice, who they said, "manned the course to per­fec­tion and won the prais­es of the run­ners".

"We have to thank the POS City Cor­po­ra­tion for re­pair­ing the pot­holes on the course and wash­ing down the Chi­na­town street as 1,700 run­ners and walk­ers de­scend­ed on the city for a cel­e­bra­tion of run­ning.

"There was Chi­nese drum­ming that gave a unique flavour to the race, as much as the de­li­cious hot pows that the par­tic­i­pants got to en­joy. There were rave re­views for the fin­ish­ers' medal. Chi­na­town and the City of Port of Spain now has an event that it can call its own and feel proud about and this was on­ly the first year."

Top 5 Re­sults

Men:

1 Nicholas Ro­many - 22.00

2 Alex Eke­sa (Kenya) - 22.03

3 Ta­fari Wal­dron - 22.53

4 Don­nell Fran­cis - 23.45

5 Collin Pereira - 23.53

Women:

1 Saman­tha Shuk­la - 29.16

2 Lin­da Mc Dow­ell (SVG) -31.09

3 Chen­nai Moore - 31.22

4 Zara Suite-Stew­art - 32.35

5 Shardie Ma­habir 32.37