NEVIS CYCLE & TRIATHLON CLUB

The Nevis AAA hosted the 2006 OECS 10 km run on Sunday 18th June, which was a celabration of the 25 years of existence of the OECS. Making their prescence felt were 15 members of the Nevis Cycle & Triathlon Club, Reggie, James, Miranda, Keith, Jaime, Nick, Wendy, Andy, Danielle, Royston, Jessica, Kristina, Jack, Frank, and Sarah, who all put on their running shoes to compete against the other 34 athletes present. Starting at 4.00pm near to the airport, the course was a simple end to end format with the finish line in downtown Charlestown, event organiser Lester Blackett dropped the flag to set the runners off. It was a fast and furious start, typical of local events, but it soon became clear who the serious challengers were, Otis Stevens of St Kitts and winner of he Church Ground Run was one of the main contenders, but a visiting athlete from St Croix, Michael Bohlke, had his own plan. Michael was clearly on a mission and within a short time was letting everyone know there was a serious race on, Reggie, James and Keith meanwhile were playing it more stragetically, due to their recent lack of run training, just pacing the front runners to see how the race was going to pan out. Heading up Hurricane hill michael made his move on Otis, pulling away and setting such a fierce pace that to reach the top of Cotton Ground only took him 16 minutes, incredible running, by this time he had a 40 second lead over Otis and the next two runners. back down the field things were also hotting up with a tussle between Shervon Greene of Nevis and james, who battled it up Cotton Ground only for Shervon to collapse at the top, and eventually have to be taken to hospital, Reggie and Keith, running together were close behind after shaking off most of the early front runners. Meanwhile the women were having quite a fight amongst themselves with Miranda duking it out with visiting runner Lisa Gonzales of the USA up the same Cotton Grond section which took its toll on Lisa in the long run. At the front of the race more drama was unfolding as Otis succumbed to the hot pace Michael was setting and he collapsed and had to go to hospital, leaving Michael to run on unchallenged to the finish, in a blistering time of 34:02, it was now only a question of who would follow, in 2nd place was Tazzie Bartlette of Nevis in 38:03, followed by Obrian Huggins of SK in 39:50. First of the team to finish was james coming in 4th in 41:37, followed by Reggie who outsprinted keith at the line for 5th in 41:47, and keith 6th, Royston put in a great showing, his first run race since his accident finishing 12th in 44:53, with Andy Brear in 13th in 45:24. Miranda having shrugged off all the earlier challenges was 1st female in a time of 47:44 followed by Lisa in 49:16 and veteran Vernice Watley in 51:08, Jessica had a good run and finished very strong in 53:59 to take 4th place and kristina and Danielle placed 5th and 6th in the females. The other team members finished in very good shape, Nick in 48:35, Jack in 49:15, Jaime in 50:44, and Frank Ashley who was 60 on Friday finished in 1:11:37, for the women Sarah in 1:06:48, and Wendy in 1:17:52. A great turnout for Team Nevis and a credit to all them as this was a surprise event that allowed no preparation at all, once again showing the depth of talent and sportmanship that binds all the team members together, and lets everyone else know they are in a race.