Gih dem Pace and Performance; Keanna steals show at RB Relays Festival

Gih dem, gih dem, gih dem, gih dem, gih dem, gih dem, gih dem performance…

As a collective, Pace and Performance Factory (PPF) emerged as the champion club when the NAAATT Republic Bank Relays Festival was held at the Hasely Crawford Stadium in Mucurapo yesterday.

By the end of the meet, PPF accumulated 174 points to take first place and the $10,000 cash prize, with Memphis Pioneers (125 points) and Concorde Athletic Club (102 points) finishing second and third, respectively.

However, it was the individual brilliance of Keanna Cummings that left fans in awe, as the 13-year-old Bishop Anstey High School student produced a pair of brilliant comeback runs on the anchor leg to help her team to gold.

Known to her teammates as “One Speed”, Cummings was tasked with running the final leg for her team in the girls’ under-15 4×100-metre, the mixed under-15 4x400m, and the girls’ under-15 4x200m.

She did brilliantly in both the mixed relay and the 4x200m to snatch the gold medal, when she had considerable ground to make up. A valiant effort in the 4x100m saw her come up just short, as she didn’t have enough track to reel in Burnley’s Kai Joseph and ended with a silver medal, after a blistering burst from the lower positions.

The daughter of former national footballer Keron “Ballpest” Cummings, Wired868 cannot confirm if Keanna has a magical left foot to match her dad’s. She does have nimble feet and sharp top-end speed, though, and gave local track and field fans a glimpse of her potential.

“While running, I saw a Burnley girl look back at me, and I was like, I can’t let her do that, so I ran in front of her,” said Cummings, with a chuckle—as she reflected on the mixed under-15 4x400m and her thought process in the heat of battle.

“And then I saw the Memphis girl not far ahead, and I ran in front of her and won gold for my team.”

With many spectators cheering on the comeback, as emcees Merere Gonzales and Gyasi Merrique provided upbeat live commentary, Cummings and the PPF team of Welette Clarke, DeAndre Valentine, and Cai Williams bagged gold in three minutes, 51.76 seconds (3:51.76).

Memphis Pioneers (3:54.33) and Burnley (4:07.03) finishing second and third, respectively.

• Introducing young Pace and Performance Factory sprinter Keanna Cummings.
  (via Roneil Walcott.)

“She always shows up no matter what,” said PPF coach and president Derrick Simon, of Cummings. “We call her One Speed. When she starts, she starts hard, and she finishes hard.”

Simon credited Cummings’ mother for her dedication and a strict programme, which has aided the athlete’s discipline and attention to detail.

PPF’s win in the mixed under-15 4x400m was the catalyst for four consecutive wins in the 4x400m discipline, as the girls’ under-17, boys’ under-17, and boys’ under-20 teams all rose to the top.

Former Carifta champs Nyla Kerr and Brion Scott had the pleasure of anchoring the respective girls’ under-17 and boys’ under-20 teams to gold, as they showed their versatility to drop from the middle-distance to sprint events.

For Simon, meets like these are all part of the process as he tries to enhance his athletes’ holistic development.

PPF started roughly ten years ago as a club designed for middle-distance and long-distance running, however Simon says its vision has broadened in the last year—as they saw the need to improve the club’s quality of sprinting, or one might say the need for speed.

“We had some work to do,” Simon said. “We had to put in some hours in the background when nobody was seeing us training and stuff like that, to really get the athletes gelling and for them to understand the dynamics of the relays as well.

“It took some effort, but at the end of the day, effort always produces.”

Those results didn’t manifest themselves overnight, either, as Simon pointed out the homework he needed to do on his end to bring the club’s sprinting up to par.

“I engaged in a coaching programme at the University of Florida, where I went to the university to get some more sprinting acumen,” he said. “I went to Florida, and they came to Trinidad. Over the last 18 months, we’ve had that relationship, and I have put a lot of effort into building that sprint acumen within the club.

“It’s really bearing fruit now.”

A possible PPF sweep in the 4x400m races was stopped when Point Fortin New Jets and UTT Patriots racked up impressive wins of their own to take the respective women’s and men’s races.

In a ding-dong battle in the men’s 4x400m, UTT’s Jayden Alexander had the last laugh on the anchor leg to take his team over the line in 3:19.44, even gesturing to shoot at the competition as he stopped the clock.

Stallions Athletics placed second in 3:19.92, with Burnley finishing third in 3:22.11, despite going into the final lap with a slim lead.

The exuberance and excellence of youth from Cummings, Alexander, Kerr, and Scott were also evident when the Simplex pair of Akilah Chinapoo and Isaiah Teesdale touched the mondo track, with Memphis Pioneers’ Eden Chee-Wah strutting her stuff too.

Chee-Wah, who turns 15 later this month, has earned relay medals at successive Carifta Games. And yesterday surely must have felt like a passing-the-torch moment for those in the Memphis camp, as Chee-Wah teamed up with veteran Michelle-Lee Ahye, 34, to good effect to guide their team to women’s 4x100m and 4x200m titles.

In the 4x100m, Chee-Wah ran the third leg and passed the baton to Ahye, who pulled away from the field for a winning time of 45.17 seconds. Abilene Wildcats were a distant second in 47.50s.

In the women’s 4x200m, the penultimate event on a packed day, it was the turn of the 2018 Commonwealth Games 100m champ, Ahye, to set the example.

She had a bullet start on the first leg, going around the bend before passing to Chee-Wah, with Kaylee Thomas and Imani Mills applying the finishing touches as Memphis (1:35.48) were again at least two seconds faster than the second-placed Abilene (1:37.58).

Athletes from as young as the under-9 age group were in the festival, and they too had their time in the sun with a mixed 4x50m race, which was won by Perseverance Titans in 32.01s.

Perseverance also ruled the roost in the girls’ under-13 4x100m, as the team of Ruth Dickson, Maylee Lee Fook, Gabriella Mendez and Zephora Skeete clocked 52.52s to beat PPF (53.15s) into second.

Dickson, Lee Fook and Mendez returned for more in the girls’ under-13 1,000m sprint medley, again edging past the PPF quartet.

The open 800m mixed sprint medley went to Abilene, while Cougars Track and Field were not left out—as they copped both the boys’ and girls’ under-11 4x100m, to go along with the boys’ under-13 1,000m sprint medley.

NAAATT president Ephraim Serrette appeared to be moved by the standard of the relays festival, and urged clubs to continue sharpening their baton-passing for the betterment of the national programme.

For too long, he said, national coaches have been tasked with running through relay fundamentals in preparation for major events, when he reckons the groundwork should have already been done at the grassroots level.

“When athletes come into the national programmes for baton-passing camps, we realise clubs are not doing it,” said Serrette. “So when it comes to the national team, we now have to train athletes to do baton passing. This will encourage clubs to do baton-passing so we’ll be back on the world stage with the sprint relays and mile relays.”

With the relays festival observing a shift from zonal teams to club versus club battle, Serrette said it brought out the best of some of the athletes as the club rivalries intensified.

“I saw a lot of good baton passing today, so that means the clubs did a lot of practice,” he said. “This event can only grow. More clubs will want to prepare their team, so we’ll have more athletes.”

For future relay festival editions, Serrette and his team plan to adopt the World Athletics Relays model by having more mixed 4x100m and 4x400m races added to the programme.

Last year, Serrette spoke to the difficulty of churning out strong relay teams for international competition, as Trinidad and Tobago failed to field any quartets for the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo.

Eleven months on, hope springs eternal for Serrette.

“As of today, I think our best chance of a medal in (LA) 2028 is our female sprint relay team,” he said.

While Ahye may be in the twilight of her career, there is a plethora of young sprinters who are looking to make their mark regionally and internationally.

Pan Am Junior 100m champ Shaniqua Bascombe, 22, and reigning 100m national champ Leah Bertrand, 23, are arguably in the form of their young careers, while Jamaican-based Alexxe Henry, 18, Akilah Lewis, 25, Lisa Raye, 18, Xenia Raye, 19, and twins Sanaa and Sole Frederick, 20, also form part of the national sprinting setup at present.

Before one can salivate about the prospects for LA28 or the women’s 100m clash at the senior national championships later this year, it’s important to keep the grassroots level nurtured—so the sprinting pipeline can continue to deliver encore performances.

Republic Bank Relays Festival winners’ circle:

Mixed Under-9 4x50m

Perseverance Titans (Kole Bennette, Jamal Coxx, Kerniah Rosalle, Praise Sheete) – 32.01s;

Mixed 800m medley

Abilene Wildcats (Nicholas Bobb, Kayla Charles, Kadija Pickering, Khadeem Ryan) – 1:40.16;

Girls’ Under-11 4x100m

Cougars Track and Field (Cassidy Browne, Zemirah Steele, Ariyah Toussaint, Azalea Waldron) – 59.50s;

Boys’ Under-11 4x100m

Cougars Track and Field (Shae Benjamin, Amar Brathwaite, Jahmir Christian, Joel Diaz) – 54.87s;

Girls’ Under-13 4x100m

Perseverance Titans (Ruth Dickson, Maylee Lee Fook, Gabriella Mendez, Zephora Skeete) – 52.52s;

Boys’ Under-13 4x100m

Pace and Performance (Naim Fernandez, Jeremiah Gloud, Aden Hackett, Adon Hackett) – 52.87s;

Girls’ Under-15 4x100m

Burnley (Destiny Arnold, Kai Joseph, Jaylene Mohammed, Shardae Stephenson) – 50.98s;

Boys’ Under-15 4x100m

Pace and Performance (Melik Stewart, DeAndre Valentine, Jervais Walford, Cai Williams) – 45.71s;

Girls’ Under-17 4x100m

Simplex Athletic Club (Akilah Chinapoo, Tasia Debisette, Precious Holford, Amelia Lee Jones) – 48.07s;

Boys’ Under-17 4x100m

Memphis Pioneers (Jevon Grant, Zayne Martin, Kymarley Moe, Christian Parks) – 42.97s;

Boys’ Under-20 4x100m

Simplex Athletic Club (Cadell Cuffy, Kamari Diaz, Jesus Quashie, Coreem Thomas) – 42.37s;

Women’s 4x100m

Memphis Pioneers (Michelle-Lee Ahye, Eden Chee-Wah, Imani Mills, Kaylee Thomas) – 45.17s;

Men’s 4x100m

Burnley (Aaron Atwell, Isaiah Mahabir, Samuel Stewart, Kyle Williams) – 41.59s;

Girls’ Under-13 1,000m medley

Perseverance Titans (Ruth Dickson, Omara Jack, Maylee Lee Fook, Gabriella Mendez) – 2:30.66;

Boys’ Under-13 1,000m medley

Cougars Track and Field (Caleb Arthur, Kaseem Du Verney, Zion Phillips, Kendall Thomas) – 2:29.49;

Mixed Under-15 4x400m

Pace and Performance (Welette Clarke, Keanna Cummings, DeAndre Valentine, Cai Williams) – 3:51.76;

Girls’ Under-17 4x400m

Pace and Performance (Nyla Kerr, Maleah Butler, Reniece Smith, Amani Thomas) – 4:06.93;

Boys’ Under-17 4x400m

Pace and Performance (Renaldo Le Gendre, Zuriel McNeil, Joshua Mitchell, Ezekiel Ross) – 3:26.30;

Boys’ Under-20 4x400m

Pace and Performance (Khordae Lewis, Khordel Lewis, Keiel Samuel, Brion Scott) – 3:15.10;

Women’s 4x400m

Point Fortin New Jets (Destiny Bartholomew, Zada Charles, Kyaah Hyson, Diamond Paul) – 3:49.50;

Men’s 4x400m

UTT Patriots (Jayden Alexander, Jeremiah Grant, Emmanuel Samuel, Nathaniel Semper) – 3:19.44;

Men’s 3,000m elimination race

Jeremy Samaroo (Richard Jones Racing Team) – 9:29.82;

Girls’ Under-15 4x200m

Pace and Performance (Keanna Cummings, Danielle Popplewell, Siara Sosa, Brianna Vesprey) – 1:47.83;

Boys’ Under-15 4x200m

Memphis Pioneers (Khadesh Frank, Josiah Kaiten, Aidan La Foucade, Kayden Romano) – 1:35.84;

Girls’ Under-17 4x200m

Simplex (Akilah Chinapoo, Tasia Debisette, Precious Holford, Neriah Thomas) – 1:43.27;

Boys’ Under-17 4x200m

Simplex (Elijah Derrick, Curtis Francois George, Isaiah Teesdale, Niko Williams) – 1:31.84;

Boys’ Under-20 4x200m

Neon Wolves (Kyle Allen, Aidyn Benjamin, Omari Brown, McAciah Warde) – 1:28.77;

Women’s 4x200m

Memphis Pioneers (Michelle-Lee Ahye, Eden Chee-Wah, Imani Mills, Kaylee Thomas) – 1:35.48;

Men’s 4x200m

Stallions Athletics (Nikel Baptiste, Tayshaun Hamlet, Chad Richards, Rogil Torres) – 1;26.82.