Nicholas Ro­many will go af­ter a sec­ond straight ti­tle when the sec­ond edi­tion of the Chi­nese Com­mu­ni­ty Friend­ship 7K Road Race, host­ed by the Fui Toong On As­so­ci­a­tion, comes off on Sun­day, Sep­tem­ber 29.

This was an­nounced by Willie Chang, a mem­ber of the T&T Fui Toong On As­so­ci­a­tion, at the me­dia launch held at the Fui Toong On As­so­ci­a­tion, 12 Char­lotte Street, Port-of-Spain, on Tues­day.

At last year’s in­au­gur­al stag­ing of the event, which at­tract­ed more than 1,700 run­ners, jog­gers, and walk­ers, Ro­many, the reign­ing Cari­com 10k cham­pi­on, won in a time of 22 min­utes flat in what was the first road race in the cap­i­tal city for over 30 years.

As part of his prize pack­age, Ro­many was award­ed an all-ex­pense-paid trip to Bar­ba­dos, where he won all three ti­tles at the Run Bar­ba­dos 2023 in De­cem­ber.

The 2023 UWI Half-Marathon cham­pi­on, Ro­many, won the Fun Mile in four min­utes, 38 sec­onds; the 10km race in 32:55 min­utes; and the Half-Marathon ti­tle in one hour, 16.54 min­utes.

Dur­ing his ad­dress, Chang first praised the var­i­ous lo­cal Chi­nese as­so­ci­a­tions, the Chi­nese Em­bassy, and the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion for mak­ing the event a re­al­i­ty.

He added, “The race is a very ex­cit­ing and much an­tic­i­pat­ed event for us as the Chi­nese Com­mu­ni­ty in T&T has the op­por­tu­ni­ty yet again to show­case the deep and strong con­nec­tions that ex­ist be­tween the Re­pub­lic of T&T and the Peo­ple’s Re­pub­lic of Chi­na.”

Chang not­ed, “The year 2024 her­alds the mile­stone achieve­ment of 50 years of diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions be­tween T&T and Chi­na.”

Ac­cord­ing to Chang, it is pro­posed that this year’s event will start at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah near Al­bion Street, with the run­ners pro­ceed­ing around the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah and then along the streets of down­town Port-of-Spain through Chi­na­town be­fore the race ends back at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah.

With re­gards to the safe­ty of the par­tic­i­pants, Chang stat­ed that the Chi­nese com­mu­ni­ty is work­ing with the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice and the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion to en­sure a safe en­vi­ron­ment for all and the best pos­si­ble road ex­pe­ri­ence.

For this year’s event, Chang al­so said he was pleased to an­nounce that Evo­lu­tion Tim­ing and Event Man­age­ment Ser­vices has been ap­point­ed as Race Di­rec­tor, pro­vid­ing not on­ly the reg­is­tra­tion plat­form but al­so the tech­ni­cal ad­vice and part­ner­ing with the or­gan­is­ers on en­sur­ing ef­fi­cient route man­age­ment. The ser­vices of the T&T Road Run­ners have al­so been se­cured in terms of sup­ply­ing the pre­req­ui­site mar­shals, route cones, and in­stal­la­tion of the fin­ish gantry.

The reg­is­tra­tion fee for this year’s event is $135 and will be open to all in­ter­est­ed par­ties on the reg­is­tra­tion plat­form start­ing Fri­day, Au­gust 2.

The win­ner of this year’s event will take home $3,000, the run­ner-up will col­lect $2,000, and third place, $1,000, while all en­trants will re­ceive beau­ti­ful com­mem­o­ra­tive medals and im­pres­sive good­ie bags.

His Ex­cel­len­cy Fang Qiu, Am­bas­sador, The Peo­ple’s Re­pub­lic of Chi­na, was quick to point out that this year’s Chi­na­town 7K Road Race co­in­cides with a se­ries of events that are specif­i­cal­ly held to mark the 50th an­niver­sary of diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions be­tween Chi­na and T&T.

He added, in the past five decades, the re­la­tion­ship be­tween our two coun­tries has on­ly grown stronger, and both coun­tries have al­ready been stead­fast in the de­vel­op­ment of bi­lat­er­al co­op­er­a­tion.

Fang Qiu said, “This year al­so marks the 75th an­niver­sary of the found­ing of the Peo­ple’s Re­pub­lic of Chi­na, and over the decades, Chi­na has un­der­gone a trans­for­ma­tion that has re­shaped the glob­al eco­nom­ic land­scape.

In clos­ing, Fang Qiu said that last year, the Chi­nese Com­mu­ni­ty do­nat­ed the pro­ceeds from the 7K Road Race to the Home­less As­sis­tance Of­fice, and this year, they will once again con­tribute the pro­ceeds from the race to a wor­thy lo­cal char­i­ty.

Chin­ua Al­leyne, May­or of Port-of-Spain, praised the or­gan­is­ers as well as for­mer May­or Joel Mar­tinez for help­ing to fos­ter stronger and more pos­i­tive re­la­tions among the dif­fer­ent com­mu­ni­ties with­in the city.

“Al­leyne not­ed that it was very im­por­tant for the PoS Cor­po­ra­tion to sup­port these kinds of or­gan­i­sa­tions and al­so pledged that his cor­po­ra­tion will con­tin­ue to do its part in mak­ing the city a bet­ter place by al­so sup­port­ing as many oth­er or­gan­i­sa­tions as pos­si­ble. 

Among those in at­ten­dance were Yu Hui Yu Fee, Vice Pres­i­dent of the Fui Toong On As­so­ci­a­tion; An­dreas Stu­ven, Race Con­sul­tant for the Chi­nese Com­mu­ni­ty 2024 Friend­ship 7k Road Race; and Kelvin Nan­coo, head coach of Cougars Track and Field Club.