African recruits helping to lift quality of middle-distance running at local schools

AT SUNDAY’S Burger King 5K Road Race in Portmore, Holmwood Technical’s girls and boys from Jamaica College (JC) and Kingston College (KC) were the most dominant high school teams.

This was no surprise. All three schools have one thing in common. Included in their squads are middle-distance athletes from Africa. These athletes played major roles in the schools’ success on Sunday and the coaches of these teams are confident the African athletes will have a major impact on their programmes in this and future seasons.

Holmwood dominated the female category after winning the 4x1500-metre relay and the 5K team event. They were aided by Florence Nafamba out of Uganda who was third in the individual 5K and was a member of the team that captured the Lois Sherwood Trophy.

Head coach of Holmwood’s girls’ team, Dave Anderson, said the African athletes have helped to lift the middle-distance programme at the school.

“Currently, we have two Ugandans in our programme with one eligible to run at Girls’ Champs,” said Anderson.

“They have brought something different to the middle-distance programme with their brave and positive attitude towards training which helps the other girls,” the Holmwood coach said.

JC walked away with a $400,000 prize after topping the boys’ 5K event and on their path to victory, they were helped by Dominic Amponsah and Evans Tetteh of Uganda. Tetteh was the second-place finisher in the individual 5K. Known for their aggressive recruiting of Caribbean athletes in past years, this was the first time the Old Hope Road-based school recruited runners from Africa.

Coach of JC’s middle-distance programme, Dwayne Johnson, has already seen the positive impact these athletes have brought to the programme.

“They have provided a big boost as it relates to the aerobic threshold development. Our local boys are now buying into the volume of mileage needed to perform at the highest level after hearing from these athletes the amount of mileage they put in back home,” Johnson said.

Johnson said it now makes his job much easier.

“It makes my work much easier to present the right mixture of aerobic threshold work in the programme now and having confidence in it as the athletes will now give it a more honest effort,” concluded Johnson.

KC are no strangers when it comes to recruiting African athletes in their middle-distance programme. These athletes have already helped them to win team titles at the ISSA/GraceKennedy Boys and Girls’ Athletics Championships.

On Sunday, new Class Two recruit Chris Wanjiku from Kenya ran a blinding second leg to separate himself from the field and KC dethroned defending champions JC to win the 4x1500m relay. Another Kenyan athlete, Brian Kiprop, ran the anchor leg.

Hamlin Pagon, the veteran middle- and long-distance head coach at KC, hailed the positive impact of the African athletes at the school.

“We have a mix of Kenyans and Jamaicans in the middle programme. This is good as our local boys do not want to be behind the Kenyans in training and this has helped to push them faster and because of this they have shown tremendous improvement,” Pagon said.