Forde among Guyana award winners

GEORGETOWN: Two-time CARIFTA Games 5,000-metre champion Cleveland Forde is one of his country’s four athletes of the year, Guyana’s Amateur Athletics Association (AAA) announced this week. Forde, who retained his CARIFTA 5,000-metre title with an easy win over Jamaican Jason Elleson in Port-of-Spain in April, was named junior male athlete of the year. National sprint champion Andre Blackman copped the senior male athlete of the year and long jump star Michelle Vaughn took the women’s equivalent.

Jennifer Chichester was named top female junior in the awards presented for outstanding achievements among local-based athletes. Forde was dominant in distance races on the local calendar and won the South American Junior Championship in Ecuador, in a fast 14:58, bettering the standing CARIFTA record for the event. Chichester also led the distance runners in the country and also won silver (3,000) and bronze (1,500 metres) at the CARIFTA Games. Blackman took the senior sprint double at the National Championship and won at invitational meets in Trinidad and Tobago, and Vaughn dominated local long jump events.