TAFARI TAKES NEW TERRITORY

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As national distance runner Tafari Waldron shocked the favourites as a new male and female champion was crowned at the UWI Spec International Half Marathon on Sunday.   The teenage who won one of T&T's 4 gold medals at this year’s Carifta Games was the surprise men's winner while Samantha Shukla continued her impressive year clinching the female title.

Transcript

00:00race begins for a half marathon runners took off with the speed equivalent to

00:04racing a 100 meter dash it was going to be a longer race for others knowing full

00:09well this is not completely a race for the Swift but for those able to endure

00:13athletes entering the race with different objectives and it's the ones

00:18that in front of that usually captured the attention defending champion

00:22Nicholas Romany was nowhere to be seen though when the winner was coming

00:25through the Kenyan Alex Ikisa was a top contender but there was a new

00:29man on the job Tafari Waldron has been doing more than just creeping up he

00:35dropped just over three minutes from last year to a winning time of one hour

00:39nine minutes and 53 seconds his time would give local distance running fans

00:44something to smile about because at 19 he's just over 12 minutes off from the

00:49half marathon world record of 57 minutes 30 seconds from Yomifkajelka

00:55which is still under pending ratification. Can Waldron dare to dream

01:00of such heights in his future? Ikisa has been in his fair share of one-second

01:04defeats this year he took second spot and Romany dropped back to third with

01:09another solid time of one hour 13 minutes 53 seconds meantime it took

01:14some hard work for Samantha Shukla to finish the race in a slower than usual

01:17time of one hour 37 minutes six seconds nearly six minutes slower than the

01:23previous year and it took its toll. Well it was really good going up but this

01:27past week I got really sick and I'm so grateful to God that he really came

01:32through because the second half was really hard for me and I just call it I

01:36kept calling on God and he helped me to stay the course so that I could get my

01:41first victory today. My first time competing in this race was in 2009 so it

01:46took up it took quite a while for me to get to this point where I'm now the

01:49female champion in this race. In 2018 I really desire to become the champion but

01:55it took seven years after for me to be able to get the victory. Second place

02:00went to Zara Sweet Stewart in one hour 41 minutes and 42 seconds while third

02:05went to Celine Lestrade one hour 42 minutes 54 seconds. The 5k winners were

02:10Darius Harding in 17 minutes 19 seconds and Cheyenne Lewis of one a week 20

02:16minutes 47 seconds.

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