Com­mon­wealth and Pan Amer­i­can Games mul­ti-medal­list Cleopa­tra Borel will open her 2013 sea­son at The Cloud on The Wa­ter­front in Auck­land, New Zealand, to­day. Borel, who has been based in Trinidad since com­pet­ing at the Lon­don Olympics in Au­gust last year, will face home girl and two-time Olympic and World Cham­pi­on Valar­ie Adams.

Borel, the na­tion­al in­door and out­door record hold­er, said she was pleased with her de­ci­sion to move back to T&T af­ter be­ing based in Bal­ti­more, Mary­land, USA."I'm ex­treme­ly hap­py with my de­ci­sion to move my train­ing base home to Trinidad and To­ba­go." She added that since re­turn­ing home she has made ad­just­ments to her work­outs. "For ex­am­ple, in the past I threw the shot-put three days week­ly, I now throw six days a week. The vol­ume of throws has been ad­just­ed, but I'm very hap­py that I have con­tact with the shot on a dai­ly ba­sis."

Speak­ing be­fore her de­par­ture for New Zealand ear­li­er this week, the Ma­yaro-born ath­lete added that she was hop­ing to throw fur­ther in the up­com­ing out­door sea­son."One of my ma­jor goals for 2013 is to im­prove my tech­nique and to hope­ful­ly pro­duce big throws, so I'm hap­py with this new ap­proach."The three-time World In­door fi­nal­ist will al­so com­pete at the Syd­ney Track Clas­sic in Syd­ney, Aus­tralia, on March 9.