‘A dream come true’
GREEN ISLAND, Hanover – After an extended wait lasting several days, Green Island High’s Faedian Royes finally got the good news he had been yearning for.
Late Friday, Royes learnt that he had been included in the Jamaican team to represent the island at the 14th IAAF World Junior Championships in Barcelona, Spain, July 10-15.
Royes who is the Milo Western Champs Class 1 400m champion, finished fifth in the Under 20 400m at the JAAA/Supreme Ventures Limited National Junior Championships, had to wait five days after the Trials to know whether he had been selected to make the team for the championships in Spain.
After travelling to Kingston to sort out paper works for his scheduled overseas trip earlier this week, Royes said the selection meant a lot to him.
“This is the highlight of my career so far,” he said, “I don’t care if I just go there to run the relays, I will just do my best.”
The lanky runner who also represented his school in the ISSA daCosta Cup football competition last season, is one of three western Jamaica- based athletes who will travel with the team to Spain next weekend, as Munro College’s shot putter Emmanuel Onyia and Senoj-jay Givans were also named on the 39 member- squad.
It will be Givans’ first national selection as well, while Onyia who switched nationalities from Nigeria earlier this year, won a silver medal in the Under 20 shot put at the CARIFTA Games in Bermuda in April.
Meanwhile, Onyia and Givans were also included in the team that will compete at the Central American and Caribbean Junior Championships later this weekend in San Salvador, El Salvador.
Other western based- athletes on the team are Petersfield High’s Asaine Hall, a medalist in the Youth Commonwealth Games; Herbert Morrison Technical’s Gawain Williams; St Elizabeth Technical’s Robin Black and Okeen Williams and Petersfield’s Glenford Watson.
Machell Woolery who coaches Hall and Watson at Petersfield has also been included on the coaching panel for the CAC juniors’ team.
In addition to Hall and Watson, Woolery has coached Waynee Hyman who represented Jamaica at he IAAF World Youth Championships in Italy in 2009, as well as Oshane Turner who also represented Jamaica at several junior events.
