Lo­cal run­ner Sjae­lan Evans will take on reign­ing women's cham­pi­on Raquel Agude­lo Berrio of Colom­bia, who will be back to de­fend her ti­tles at this week­end's In­ter­na­tion­al Sea to Sea Marathon in To­ba­go.

The Colom­bian set the course record in the marathon with a clock­ing of three hours, three min­utes and .08 sec­onds last year and al­so crossed first in the 10K to be the favourite to re­peat.

How­ev­er, Evans, who was the first T&T women's run­ner to com­plete the race course last year, plac­ing fourth over­all (3:19.55) in the cat­e­go­ry be­hind Berrio, USA's Mary Akor (3:09.14) and Kenya's Leah Ki­gen (3:18.55), re­spec­tive­ly, will be one of Berrio's biggest chal­lengers for the ti­tle.

Oth­er lo­cal women com­peti­tors in­clude Chris­tine Reg­is, Chan­tal Le Maitre and Camille Her­nan­dez, who will be rac­ing for the top prize of $16,000 in the marathon on Sun­day. The sec­ond place fin­ish­er gets $8,000, third $5,000 and fourth, $3,000.

Mean­while, a new men's win­ner will be crowned as de­fend­ing cham­pi­on Pe­dro Mo­ra of Venezuela will not be com­pet­ing said race di­rec­tor Ray­mond Chin Asang, open­ing up the way for lo­cal run­ners Cur­tis Cox, Elvis Turn­er and Nigel Si­mon.

"Pe­dro Mo­ra said the tick­et is ex­pen­sive, and he will not be com­ing," said Chin Asang.

Cox, 50, crossed third at the last edi­tion in 3:02.2 be­hind Mo­ra (2:39.03) and Colom­bian Jose Elmer Ararat Di­az (2:45.43). Si­mon (3:25.00) was the top fin­ish­er in the men's 40-49 cat­e­go­ry and was 10th over­all.

Ac­cord­ing to Chin Asang, Kenyan Hillary Kip­tanui Too is try­ing his very best to get to the sis­ter isle for the an­nu­al event. He said the 2016 UWI SPEC Half-Marathon win­ner (1:05:48) is ex­pect­ed to ar­rive in Trinidad to­mor­row.

"He will ar­rive on Fri­day (to­mor­row) at Pi­ar­co with­out a tick­et for To­ba­go. Even if we want­ed to book a tick­et for him we don't know his itin­er­ary and it's too late now any­way. I have learnt a long time ago that run­ners are re­silient peo­ple. It will be no sur­prise to see him in To­ba­go. When you are a run­ner you learn to be re­silient," said Chin Asang in a Face­book post yes­ter­day.

If Too, who won last year's Mi­a­mi Marathon and the 2017 Quad Cities Marathon, do make it to To­ba­go, he and his fel­low com­peti­tors will face the starter at Main Ridge For­est Re­serve near Bloody Bay on the Caribbean Sea, pro­ceed through the for­est to Rox­bor­ough, To­ba­go’s sec­ond largest town lo­cat­ed on the At­lantic Sea coast.

Ath­letes will then run south along Wind­ward Road flanked by the At­lantic coast with sea­side vis­tas, through pic­turesque vil­lages to the cap­i­tal Scar­bor­ough and on to the 26.2-mile dis­tance fin­ish line in Lam­beau Beach, Lit­tle Rock­ly Bay on the At­lantic Ocean. The Half Marathon, 10K and 5K are al­so on the same route and all end at the same fin­ish line in Lam­beau Beach. The races are all chip timed and AIMS/IAAF cer­ti­fied.

In the half marathon al­so card for Sun­day, T&T's Shir­van Ba­boolal, Richard Jones, Guswil George, Can­tius Thomas, Ce­line Lestrade, Gi­na Hart, Rox­anne McKen­na and Genevieve Mum­mery will go for glo­ry.

The 10K and 5K will run off on Sat­ur­day.

Prizes will be award­ed for age groups as well as open cat­e­gories. In­ter­na­tion­al run­ners qual­i­fy for open prizes on­ly. On­ly lo­cal run­ners will be award­ed age group prizes but there is an added in­cen­tive to re­gion­al com­peti­tors.

Chin Asang said, "There is Cari­com cat­e­go­ry in the 10K, half, and marathon."

Prizes (Men's and women's)

Full Marathon

1st. $16,000; 2nd. $8,000; 3rd. $5,000; 4th. $3,000

Half Marathon

1st. $8,000; 2nd. $4,000; 3rd. $2,000; 4th. $1,000

10K

1st. $5,000; 2nd. $3,000; 3rd. TT$2,000; 4th. $1,000