Je­lani Beck­les

Kenyan-born George Towett of USA, made it a hat-trick of ti­tles yes­ter­day morn­ing, af­ter win­ning the tenth UWI SPEC In­ter­na­tion­al Half-Marathon in St Au­gus­tine.

Towett, who won last year's event in one hour, eight min­utes and 25 sec­onds, im­proved his time by more than two min­utes to come out on top in 1:06:22. The sec­ond and third place fin­ish­ers al­so ran faster than Towett's win­ning time last year. Richard Kessio of Kenya broke the tape in 1:07:16, fol­lowed by Cuban Nor­bert Gutier­rez Curbec in 1:07:44 and Ru­pert Green of Ja­maica in 1:10:25.

Cur­tis Cox, 45, was the first lo­cal ath­lete to com­plete the course, round­ing off the top five in 1:14:22, in what was a dis­ap­point­ing race for some of the top lo­cal male run­ners. T&T's Richard Jones, who came sec­ond in 2012, did not fin­ish in the top 10. Vet­er­an run­ner Pa­menos Bal­lan­tyne of St Vin­cent and the Grenadines al­so per­formed cred­itably, fin­ish­ing eighth over­all.

Speak­ing to the me­dia af­ter his vic­to­ry, Towett was sat­is­fied with the out­come. "I think I did bet­ter to­day, be­cause last year I did not run good, be­cause the time was not good, but to­day I try to push and push and see if I can do it bet­ter this time."

Towett al­so stat­ed that he al­ways en­joys the UWI half-marathon. "I like run­ning this race, it is a very good course, well or­gan­ised race, wa­ter every­where."

Among the ladies, it was a two-horse race be­tween lo­cal de­fend­ing cham­pi­on Tonya Nero and Niger­ian-born Mary Akor of USA. Akor even­tu­al­ly pre­vailed in 1:21:11, ahead of Nero (1:21:29), who ran three min­utes slow­er than her win­ning time last year of 1:18:30. Kar­la Urbina Ro­jas of Venezuela came a dis­tant third, while Janelle Nedd of T&T end­ed fourth.

Af­ter her sec­ond place fin­ish, the pe­tite ath­lete re­flect­ed on what was a chal­leng­ing sea­son. "It hasn't been as I want­ed it to be, I start­ed off with a lit­tle pain be­hind my knee and it felt like an in­jury, and it was keep­ing me back from my train­ing." Nero said her strat­e­gy was to stay close to Akor, be­cause she knows they run sim­i­lar times. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, Akor was a lit­tle stronger on the day.

RE­SULTS

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MALE

Name Coun­try Time

George Towett USA 1:06:22

Richard Kessio Kenya 1:07:16

Nor­bert Gutier­rez Curbec Cu­ba 1:07:44

Ru­pert Green Ja­maica 1:10:25

Cur­tis Cox T&T 1:14:22

Kade Sobers T&T 1:18:11

Elvis Turn­er T&T 1:18:16

Pa­menos Bal­lan­tyne SVG 1:18:24

Shir­van Ba­boolal T&T 1:18:30

Lyn­don Bac­chus T&T 1:18:40

FE­MALE

Mary Akor USA 1:21:11

Tonya Nero T&T 1:21:29

Kar­la Urbina Ro­jas VEN 1:28:01

Jenelle Nedd T&T 1:28:08

Ce­line Lestrade T&T 1:35:07

Ker­ticha John T&T 1:39:22

Sara Ouel­lette T&T 1:39:49

Car­lyle Jack­son T&T 1:40:28

Chris­tine Reg­is T&T 1:40:59

Paulette Lucess T&T 1:43:01