NICHOLAS RO­MANY ran away with the over­all ti­tle at the 24th an­nu­al Ven­ture Cred­it Union Co-op­er­a­tive So­ci­ety Lim­it­ed 5K Road Race and Fun Walk events in Cou­va on Sun­day.

The 29-year-old,, who won the Fiu Toong On As­so­ci­a­tion Chi­na­towm 7k Road Race last Sun­day, re­peat­ed his ex­ploits over In­ter­na­tion­al run­ner Kenyan Alex Eke­sa when he clocked 15 min­utes and sev­en sec­onds. Eke­sa was four sec­onds adrift in sec­ond place with Ta­fari Wal­dron clock­ing 15.35 to se­cure the third-place ho­n­ours.

Com­plet­ing the top five spots, re­spec­tive­ly, was Don­nel Fran­cis with 16.09 and Sea­man Col­in Pereira of Road Run­ners with 16.14.

With the is­land un­der pres­sure due to a heat wave, some 1,300 par­tic­i­pants braved the ear­ly morn­ing heat to com­pete in the pop­u­lar event with this year’s theme for the 5k, "Back on Track".

Ro­many copped the first prize of the Desmond E. Bax­ter chal­lenge tro­phy and $3,000. The chal­lenge tro­phy is named af­ter the late Bax­ter, who was one of the found­ing mem­bers of the Cred­it Union, and al­so the chair­man of the sport­ing com­mit­tee.

The first woman to cross the fin­ish line was Saman­tha Shuk­la with a time of 19.34. Com­ing in sec­ond place in the women's cat­e­go­ry was 10-year-old Chen­nia Moore in 21.16, beat­ing April Fran­cis, who placed third with 21.57. Fourth place went to Shardie Ma­habir, who passed the fin­ish­ing line in 22.31, and Juli­et John-Sam­bra­no placed fifth in 22.52.

Sev­er­al young chil­dren par­tic­i­pat­ed in the road race, which start­ed and end­ed in front of Ven­ture Cred­it Union build­ing South­ern Main Road, Cou­va, com­pet­ing against par­tic­i­pants over 60 years.

Par­ents with ba­bies in prams al­so par­tic­i­pat­ed in the 5k to­geth­er with phys­i­cal­ly chal­lenged Ger­ad Ass­ing who was the lone com­peti­tor in his cat­e­go­ry.

Re­sults

Men's cat­e­go­ry

1 Nicholas Ro­many 15.07

2 Alex Eke­sa 15.11

3 Ta­fari Williams 15.35

4 Don­nell Fran­cis 16.09

5 Collin Per­ri­era 16.14

Women's cat­e­go­ry

1 Sman­tha Shuk­la 19.34

2 Chen­nai Moore 21.16

3 April Fran­cis 21.57

4 Shardie Ma­habir 22.31

5 Juli­et John-Sama­roo 22.52