Clay­ton Clarke

T&T's cross-coun­try run­ners will be look­ing to mount the top of the podi­um at the ninth an­nu­al North Amer­i­can, Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean (NACAC) Cross Coun­try Cham­pi­onships in Man­dev­ille, Ja­maica, to­day.

The lo­cal squad has nev­er cap­tured a gold medal but the trend in re­cent years has shown an im­prove­ment.

At last year's edi­tion at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah in Port-of-Spain, the lo­cal team won sil­ver medals for the first time as Tonya Nero de­light­ed the home crowd with a spir­it­ed sec­ond place fin­ish in the women's 6K to earn the first in­di­vid­ual medal for T&T in the sev­en of the nine oc­ca­sions na­tion­al ath­letes have par­tic­i­pat­ed.

Nero's sec­ond place fin­ish helped the lo­cal ladies to sil­ver in the team race. In the pre­vi­ous edi­tion, T&T cap­tured three bronze medals (men's and women's teams in 2011 and women's team in 2010).

The 24-year-old is again this coun­try's main medal hope and will be hop­ing to go one bet­ter in Ja­maica. Stand­ing in the way of gold for Nero in Ja­maica are run­ners for the USA and Cana­da.

The North Amer­i­cans have dom­i­nat­ed the NACAC Cross Coun­try cham­pi­onships shar­ing all nine ti­tles since the in­cep­tion of the event in 2005. The Mara­cas res­i­dent fine-tuned her prepa­ra­tion, cap­tur­ing the 5k and half-marathon ti­tles at the Trinidad and To­ba­go In­ter­na­tion­al Marathon se­ries last week­end.

Na­tion­al cham­pi­on Den­zil Ramirez and vet­er­ans Jules La Rode and Cur­tis Cox are ex­pect­ed to lead the way among the lo­cal men while Matthew Ha­gley and Richard Jones are mak­ing their fourth ap­pear­ance at the meet.

Triple Carif­ta gold medal­list Mark Lon­don and two-time na­tion­al ju­nior cross-coun­try cham­pi­on Akeem Mar­shall will head the ju­nior men's 6K squad.

T&T team

Men's 8K: Den­zel Ramirez, Matthew Ha­gley, Richard Jones, Jules La Rode, Kendis Bullard.

Women's 6K: Tonya Nero

Ju­nior Men's 6K: Akeem Mar­shall, Mark Lon­don, Ash­ton Gill, Ro­mario Ri­car­do Ro­drigues

Of­fi­cials: Dawn Wash­ing­ton (man­ag­er), Juleus Smart (coach), Brent El­der (mas­sage ther­a­pist)