VINAYA BOODRAM

The Roy­al Bank of Cana­da held their RBC Race for the Kids (RFTK) 5K and 15K on Sun­day in St Clair, Port-of-Spain with Alex Eke­sa win­ning the 15k ti­tle.

Eke­sa with bib num­ber 393, placed first in the 15k race at a time of 47 min­utes and 51 sec­onds. Fol­low­ing be­hind in a time of 48.44 was Nicholas Ro­many from team T&T Road Rac­ing Club (TTR­RC), cap­tained by Christo­pher Williams.

Cap­tain Collin Pereira of the team named af­ter him­self, placed third with a time of 51.19.

The RBC RFTK is a glob­al char­i­ty run that has grown in­to a se­ries of 25-plus fam­i­ly fun races that take place around the world. In ad­di­tion to New York City, they al­so held the event in 15 oth­er ma­jor cities around the world, in­clud­ing Chica­go, Min­neapo­lis, Toron­to, Lon­don, Hong Kong, and Syd­ney. In the Caribbean, there are races al­so in Bar­ba­dos, the Cay­man Is­lands, the Ba­hamas, and T&T.

The T&T edi­tion of the RFTK event sup­ports the RBC Caribbean Chil­dren’s Can­cer Fund and as­sists Caribbean youth un­der the age of 16 who have been di­ag­nosed with can­cer. It funds the care, treat­ment, and test­ing of those who are fight­ing the dis­ease. Many chil­dren in T&T bat­tle can­cer every day. To date, over 280 chil­dren have been treat­ed.

Apart from the chil­dren and fam­i­lies that have been as­sist­ed through the fund, we are proud of our 2019 do­na­tion of a Flow Cy­tome­ter, val­ued at TT 2.5 mil­lion, to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Com­plex. This ma­chine in­creas­es sur­vival rates as it more ac­cu­rate­ly di­ag­noses leukaemia at an ear­ly stage.

The top fin­ish­er among the women was Saman­tha Shuk­la, who placed 17th over­all with an hour and 50 sec­onds. Chantel Le Maitre was 36th with a time of one hour and nine min­utes and in 47th place with a time of one hour and ten min­utes, Kel­ly Ram­per­sad from team One A Week, cap­tained by Sherette Al­man­doz.

In the 5k cat­e­go­ry, all top three fin­ish­ers com­plet­ed the race with­in 15 min­utes. Ta­fari Wal­dron was num­ber one, with a time of 15 min­utes and 14 sec­onds. A cou­ple of sec­onds away was Don­nell Fran­cis in sec­ond with a time of 15 min­utes and 37 sec­onds and from team De­fence Force, Christo­pher Mitchell in third, clock­ing in a time of 15 min­utes and 45 sec­onds.

Rep­re­sent­ing the women Isis Gaskin was in 13th place com­plet­ing the race in 19.14. Kayleigh Forde of Con­vent Strong placed 20th in 20.27 and in 26th Chen­nai Moore, with a time of 20.46.

At the end of the char­i­ty event, a to­tal of $18,130.30 was raised over­all. From teams, a to­tal of $10,465.61 alone was raised, with the goal be­ing $20,000. Top teams, team Ledgerndary raised $3,639.89 fol­lowed by team Mar­aval with $2,450.82. The top fundrais­er, Nisha Chillar-Ali, raised $3,497.18, and Tara Tri­cia Lopes with $1,061.56.

5K TOP FIVE

Men

1 Ta­fari Wal­dron 15:14

2 Don­nell Fran­cis 15:37

3 Christo­pher Mitchel (De­fence Force) 15:45

4 Jay­den Alexan­der (Richard Jones Rac­ing) 17:17

5 Noah Teix­eira (Gi­ants Mul­ti­sport) 17:31

Women

13 Isis Gaskin 19:14

20 Kayleigh Forde (con­vent strong) 20:27

26 Chen­nai Moore 20:52

31 Chrys­tel Browne 21:11

39 Sari­ka Moti­lal 21:49

15K TOP FIVE

Men

1 Alex Ske­sa 47:51

2 Nicholas Ro­many (TTR­RC) 48:44

3 Collin pereira (Collin Pereira dis­tance) 51:19

4 Elvis Turn­er (richard jones rac­ing) 52:43

5 Cliffton Sylvester 53:01

women

18 Saman­tha Shuk­la 1:00:50

38 Chantel Le Maitre 1:09:04

47 Kel­ly Ram­per­sad (one a week) 1:10:19

48 Chris­tine Reg­is 1:10:31

57 Zara Suite-Stew­art 1:12:09