Christo­pher Mitchell of De­fence Force and Ny­la Kerr of the Cougars track and field club sped to vic­to­ry in the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) 6K pre­sent­ed by the Ath­let­ic Sec­tion of the TTPS, Sun­day morn­ing, start­ed and end­ed at the Ken Cook field, Po­lice Train­ing Bar­racks in St James.

The race was set to start at 6.30 am but be­gan a bit lat­er than ex­pect­ed at 6.45 am, send­ing some 265 run­ners on their way.

Over­all win­ner Mitchell raced in­to an ear­ly lead and he was some six me­tres ahead of Un­at­tached run­ners Der­rick Per­ouza and Bri­an Gue­vara. Christo­pher Suther­land (Un­at­tached) was track­ing the pace in fourth just in front of an­oth­er Un­at­tached run­ner Corey Joseph-Sama­roo.

Be­hind the main group was Kerr and Cougars' club­mate Jah Micheal Wal­dron. April Fran­cis (Un­at­tached) was in touch with Chelsea Fran­cois (Un­at­tached) just be­hind. This group was be­ing fol­lowed by Ja­da Fe­lix of Mal­ick Sec­ondary School) and Claire For­tune (Full­Body Fit­ness) as Seth Sylvester (Cougars) moved clos­er to the lead­ers.

When the race ar­rived at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah in Port-of-Spain go­ing past Queen's Roy­al Col­lege, Mitchell was a clear leader and trav­el­ling strong­ly, Per­ouza was still sec­ond and Gue­vara go­ing well in third. Kerr was at the head of the women and go­ing strong­ly from Fran­cis with Fran­cois try­ing to keep up with her.

At NA­PA, the race was on in earnest and the gaps be­gan to ap­pear as Mitchell pulled some 100 me­tres clear of the sec­ond run­ner Per­ouza who had Gue­vara on his heels with Suther­land some five me­tres be­hind that pair. Joseph-Sama­roo was next as Kerr, the women's leader showed with Wal­dron, Ake­lion Smith (Un­at­tached), Seth Man­groo (Un­at­tached) and Sylvester clos­ing in. They were fol­lowed by Fran­cis, Fran­cois, Fe­lix and For­tune.

It was at this stage that on­look­ers could en­vis­age that Mitchell was in a dif­fer­ent league as he opened up even fur­ther on the field. How­ev­er, the bat­tle for sec­ond was a good one and the bat­tle be­tween Per­ouza and Gue­vara con­tin­ued with Suther­land try­ing to close.

Kerr was go­ing great and was be­gin­ning to pull away from her ri­vals as Fran­cis at­tempt­ed to al­so close on the leader with Fran­cois keep­ing up the fight as Fe­lix got clos­er to the lead­ers.

Com­ing to Nel­son Man­dela Park, the Po­lice were al­ready get­ting set to wel­come Mitchell and he hit the line in the time of 20 min­utes and 54 sec­onds. Sec­ond place was Per­ouza in 24.18 with Gue­vara in third with a time of 24.30.

Kerr ran her best race and reg­is­tered a time of 25.22 for her win­ning run and her sev­enth over­all plac­ing. Fran­cis was sec­ond in 27.33 with Fran­cois third in 28.51.

Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher was on hand to present the awards won on the day.

TTPS 6K re­sults

Men's cat­e­go­ry:

1 (1) Christo­pher Mitchell (De­fence Force) 20.54

2 (2) Der­rick Per­ouza (Un­at­tached) 24.18

3 (3) Bryan Gue­vara (Un­at­tached) 24.30

4 (4) Christo­pher Suther­land (Un­at­tached) 24.54

5 (5) Corey Joseph-Sama­roo (Un­at­tached) 24.54

6 (6) Jah Micheal Wal­dron (Cougars) 25,20

7 (8) Ake­lion Smith (Un­at­tached)25.37

8 (9) Jabari Mitchell (Un­at­tached) 25.46

9 (10) Johnathon Fran­cois (Un­at­tached) 25.59

10 (11) Seth Man­groo (Un­at­tached) 26.06

Women's cat­e­go­ry:

1 (7) Ny­la Kerr 25.22

2 (14) April Fran­cis (Un­at­tached) 27.33

3 (22) Chelsea Fran­cois (Un­at­tached)28.51

4 (31) Ja­da Fe­lix (Cougars) 29.59

5 (46) Claire For­tune (Full­body Fit­ness) 31.36

6 (49) Reisa Young (Un­at­tached) 32.19

7 (52) Gabrielle Grant (Un­at­tached) 32.44

8 (60) Janaye Duke (Medal Hunters) 34.05

9 (65) Char­maine Dook­ie (Un­at­tached) 34.38

10 (72) Kim Gomez (Un­at­tached) 35.01