Having placed fifth on the girls’ side and 11th on the boys’ at last year’s ISSA/GraceKennedy Athletics Championships, Hydel Group of Schools will be pushing for success, respect and recognition.

Joseph Small, who is an assistant coach, as well as the strength and fitness coach, believes that despite being a young team, they can do great things.

“Training has been going well. We have a young team and we are trying to prepare the team mentally first, and we are looking to push forward to see the great things that Hydel can do,” said Small.

After scoring valuable points in both areas last year, Small outlined that he is looking forward to an even better showing this time around.

“We have a lot of good athletes going into champs this year — Jada Martin, Shakour Ellis, Radana Lee — a good crop of athletes and with the consistency in their training, we see great things happening from them this year.

“In the quarter-mile programme we have Taqece Duggan, Ava-Gaye Bryan, Abigail Brooks and there is also Shiann Salmon, who is a good 400m athlete as well. They have been consistent throughout the year and they will be successful in their events, so we are looking forward to getting some points from them,” he noted.

Hydel girls finished fifth at last year’s championship with 157.5 points, behind winners Holmwood Technical with 310.5. Edwin Allen were second with 305.5, and St Jago third on 208 ahead of Vere Technical in fourth spot with 202.

Head coach Corey Bennett believes that discipline is the main substance behind achieving their goals.

“Discipline is first and foremost. Without discipline we don’t believe we would have achieved anything to date. We believe in attitude over talent. We believe that once we have a disciplined set of athletes, we are going to have a disciplined programme, and once we have a disciplined programme, we can achieve some of the goals that we set out to achieve,” said Bennett.

Having seen his athletes finish first and second in the Class Three girls’ 200 metres, and copping two gold medals in the 4X100 metres relays, one of which came in a record-breaking time last year, coach Bennett thinks all of his athletes are “worthy of being watched at champs this year”.

Meanwhile, girls’ team captain Shakera Ragnatt, who does the 400 metres, said she is aiming to do well this year and elaborated that her team is ready both mentally and physically, as they have been challenging themselves in training.

The promising Taqece Duggan, who won the Class Three girls’ 200 metres and was a runner-up in the 400 metres, said she is extremely proud of her performances last year after having a bad start to her season and is aiming to do a lot better this year.

“I just want to go out there and do my best. Last year in the 200m I ran 23.77. I hope to get below that and in the 400m, I ran 54.00, so I am hoping to do better at both events this year,” said Duggan.

“Since the year began I have participated in a number of track meets. I did the 400m, came third overall and my times were very satisfactory. I just went out there, followed instructions and executed,” said the rising star.

Carifta Games high jump bronze medallist Shiann Salmon is also expected to gain points for Hydel in Class Two. With a personal best of 1.70m, she is aiming to better that height, which would enable her to be in the medals once more.

“My biggest competition is Toni-Ann Farquharson from Wolmer’s Girls, who cleared the same height as me and we both have the same personal record. I am going out there to do my best and execute as told by my coach and hopefully, I will do better than last year,” ended the Class Three athlete.

Hydel to push for success, respect, recognition at Champs 2014

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