MARATHON DETERMINATION

When Curtis Cox won the CLICO International Trinidad and Tobago Marathon on Sunday not only had it taken him 19 years of competing to finally achieve the feat but also he was the first national in 11 years to win the gruelling 26.2 mile race from Chaguanas to Port-of-Spain. The last had been Michael Alexander in 1994.

In the process, Cox, who placed second last year and third in 1991 and 1992 became a role model to young nationals, an example to them that they too can be achievers, and not necessarily limited to athletics, if they keep on trying hard enough. The long 19-year road had not been easy for Cox, but his defeat of the formidable St Vincent and the Grenadines champion marathon runner, Pamenos Ballantyne, in the 2003 Run Barbados Half Marathon had clearly helped.

Meanwhile, even as Cox beat Ballantyne, who had won the race several times, Granny Luces, who first came into prominence as a marathon runner in the 1980s, while in her mid-50s, failed on Sunday for only the first time in 22 years to finish the course. Yet even in defeat, the mere fact of Granny Luces’ taking part in the 26-mile plus race at a time when many people her age — she is in her 70s — tend to view themselves as rocking chair senior citizens should motivate them, if not to race at least to be active. So that Luces’ participation in the gruelling marathon and Cox’ victory must be regarded as motivating pluses for other nationals, the young and the not so young.

Caribbean people, four from this country, three from Venezuela and the remainder, one each from Jamaica, Barbados and St Vincent and the Grenadines, took the top ten spots among the men. It was different with the women, with the first place in the women’s marathon going to Joanna Gront of Poland for the second time, while Karoline Schmid of Germany came in fourth. Two of the published first five places went to nationals of Trinidad and Tobago, Natalie Suite, third, and Leisl Puckerin, fifth. Adelaide Carrington who, like Ballantyne, is from St Vincent placed second. What is interesting is that of the four Venezuelans, who participated in the marathon, three of them placed among the first ten. The marathon has attracted through the years marathoners from Africa, Europe, the Americas and the Caribbean, who have competed in other recognised international meets in addition to Trinidad and Tobago’s.

Training for and taking part in the marathon, a race with its origin in Greece, demand a measure of discipline and determination. And while several of the approximately 500 road runners failed to complete the race within an hour of first-placed Curtis Cox, who did it in two hours, 24 minutes and 21 seconds, and some not at all, what is important is their having taken part. Not unexpectedly, most of the crowd which had gathered outside of the Queen’s Park Oval had drifted away once the top entrants and/or their friends had crossed the finishing line. Cox won a trophy and a cheque for TT$25,000 for coming first in the men’s edition of the marathon, while Poland’s Joanna Grond secured the TT$19,000 first prize among the women. Already, several of the road runners, who competed on Sunday, are looking forward to taking part in other international marathons this year.