Didi­mo Sanchez Men­doza ran a well thought out race to bet­ter his time from last year and re­peat as cham­pi­on of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies Sports and Ed­u­ca­tion Cen­tre’s (UWI SPEC) In­ter­na­tion­al Half-Marathon on Sun­day.

The Venezue­lan ex­e­cut­ed his strat­e­gy per­fect­ly to win in one hour, sev­en min­utes and 55 sec­onds to take the 16th edi­tion of the event, which start­ed and end­ed at UWI SPEC in St Au­gus­tine. He won last year’s edi­tion in 1:08.49.

Sanchez Men­doza made a surge at the 10-mile mark to beat Kenyan Alex Eke­sa, who clocked 1:08.40, in sec­ond-place, just at they fin­ished in this year’s Sea-To-Sea half-marathon. Colom­bia’s Jose Elmer Ararat Di­az was third in 1:12.01.

Speak­ing af­ter the race through trans­la­tor Fi­del Al­fon­so Bar­roso, a Cuban-born sprints and hur­dles coach at UWI, Sanchez Men­doza said: “The race was very good, I pre­pared to break the record and win the race.”

Al­ready think­ing ahead to next year, he added: “I plan to com­pete next year in the T&T In­ter­na­tion­al Marathon and to meet the mark for the Olympic Games in Tokyo. I am prepar­ing to qual­i­fy for the Olympic Games. I will next take on the Hous­ton marathon in the Unit­ed States aim­ing to qual­i­fy for the Olympics.”

Matthew Ha­gley was the first T&T ath­lete to cross the line. The De­fence Force run­ner was fourth with a 1:12.28-clock­ing and was the lone T&T ath­lete among the top five. Ju­nior Ash­ton, of St Vin­cent and the Grenadines, was fifth with 1:12.51.

Kenya’s Veron­i­ca Jep­koskei-Ngoso­sei al­so ran a well cal­cu­lat­ed race to be­come the new women’s cham­pi­on in a time of 1:18.32.

“I did good though it was hu­mid,” said the soft-spo­ken Kenyan run­ner af­ter­wards.

“I didn’t make the time I need­ed be­cause it was hu­mid. I want­ed 1:15.00 but I made it in 1:18.00. It was tough go­ing past the fifth mile, I put ex­tra to make sure I win.”

Jep­koskei-Ngoso­sei was a clear win­ner ahead of last year’s cham­pi­on Pal­me­nia Berrio (Colom­bia) 1:21.13 while in third was St Vin­cent and the Grenadines’ Lin­da Mc­Dowall in 1:27.28.

“I was lead­ing from the start and I was mov­ing well. I put in the ef­fort to make sure when I passed the fifth mile I was think­ing in my mind that I should put more ef­fort in and I did and won,” said Jep­koskei, who won the Sco­tia­bank Walk Against Breast Can­cer 5K some weeks ago.

“I like rac­ing in Trinidad. It was well or­gan­ised. The wa­ter sta­tion, every­thing was well or­gan­ised and I was hap­py about it. This is my sec­ond half-marathon and I am will­ing to run the marathon next year.”

In the re­lay event, Team Sabres was first with 1:34:19, fol­lowed by St George’s Col­lege in 1:43:32 and the Cen­tral Bank Sports Clu­bin 1:54:46.

The event, which lived-up to ex­pec­ta­tions, saw all fin­ish­ers, whether they sprint­ed, stum­bled or walked across the line, get­ting their par­tic­i­pa­tion medal. This brought ril­liant smiles across their faces as they posed for self­ies and took in­di­vid­ual and group shots cel­e­brat­ing their achieve­ment.

Men (Over­all)

1 Didi­mo Sanchez Men­doza (Venezuela) - 1:07.55

2 Alex Eke­sa (Kenya) - 1:08.40

3 Jose Elmer Ararat Di­az (Colom­bia) - 1:12.01

4 Matthew Ha­gley (T&T) - 1:12.28

5 &emp­mar­gin;Ju­nior Ash­ton (St Vin­cent and the Grenadines) - 1:12.51

6 Sher­wyn Sta­ple­ton (T&T) - 1:13.37

7 Shir­van Ba­boolal (T&T) - 1:13.49

8 Christo­pher Mitchell (T&T) - 1:14.30

9 Shurlun Williams (T&T) - 1:15.51

10 Adri­an Hack­ett (T&T) - 1:16.28

Women (Over­all)

1 (16) Veron­i­ca Jep­koskei-Ngoso­sei (Kenya) - 1:18.32

2 (22) Pal­me­nia Berrio (Colom­bia) - 1:21.13

3 &emp­mar­gin;(39) Lin­da Mc­Dowall (St Vin­cent and th Grenadines) - 1:27.28

4 (43) Zuleima Amaya (Venezuela) - 1:28.52

5 (91) Sali­na Scott (T&T) - 1:38.27

6 (96) Sjae­lan Evans (T&T) - 1:39.26

7 (99) April Fran­cis (T&T) - 1:39.48

8 (106) Camille Her­nan­dez (T&T) - 1:40.59

9 (107) Chantel Le Maitre (T&T) - 1:40.48

10 (114) Chris­tine Reg­is (T&T) - 1:41.50

Re­lay

1 Sabres - 1:34:19

2 St George’s Col­lege - 1:43:32

3 Cen­tral Bank Sports Club - 1:54:46

4 UWI Track Team - 1:54:57

5 Dray­ton Reid Gary Key­on - 1:55:12

6 Run­ners And Walk­ers (RAW) - 1:58:32

7 Cen­tral Bank A Team - 2:00:10

8 Spec track­ers - 02:00:29

9 2by2 - 2:01:02

10 GTSC - 2:02:33