St George Secondary School had a lot to celebrate this morning at the Powerade Barbados Secondary Schools’ Athletic Championships.
Little Mary Fraser stole the hearts of everyone who saw her run – even those who were supporting Combermere School – when she upset favourite Cindy Forde, blazing to a new record in the open girls’ 3000 metres.
Fraser drafted off Forde for the whole race, testing the half-miler at the 200m mark, then making her move with about 150 metres to go. Coming out of the turn, she pulled away from Forde to win in 11 minutes 03.58 seconds, replacing the 11:09 by Najuma Comissiong from 2005.
Combermere’s Forde was second in 11:11.09 and Parkinson’s Sonia Gaskin was third in 11:12.03.
David Yearwood of The Lodge School had a much easier victory in the junior boys’ 3000 metres, winning in 10:44.12 after Princess Margaret’s Giovanni Phillips (10:49.18) and St Leonard’s Kadae Mascoll (10:50.99) fell off the pace.
In other early results, Springer Memorial’s Akela Jones won her second event with a CARIFTA Games “B” qualifying height of 1.65 metres in the Under-17 girls’ high jump and The St Michael School’s Holly-Ann Hunte won the junior girls’ javelin with 31.03 metres.
At lunch time, Springer still led the girls with 44 points, followed by Queen’s College (27) and Combermere with 23.
The Lodge School have taken over among the boyswith 19 points, while Princess Margaret and Harrison College both have 11 points.
