Sigma success! $15.2 million raised for charity as 16,000 participate

 Robert Bailey, Gleaner Writer

Horace Burey and Maxine Lindo were the overall male and female winners of yesterday's 13th staging of the PanCaribbean Sigma Cor-porate 5K charity run competition, which started on Knutsford Boulevard and ended at Emancipation Park in New Kingston.

Burey won the event in 18.15 minutes ahead of Wilfred Wilson (18.47) and Phillip Lawrence (19.06). Burey said he was very delighted with his performance.

"I am feeling really good because almost every year, I have been finishing second or third, but this year I stepped up my training and so I was able to come out the winner today," said Burey, who hails from the parish of St Catherine.

Burey added: "My plan was to go out there and keep up with the front runners and when they reached close to the finish line, I just pulled away from them and that was what I did to win this race."

Female crown

Lindo took home the female crown in a smart 22.38 minutes in front of Karlene Blagrove (22.53) and Keneisha Stevens (23.08).

Meanwhile, Wilson, who represented Urban Deve-lopment Corporation, was the winner of the corporate section with his 18.47 minutes effort which was too fast for Henroy Lewis of Nestle Jamaica (19.47) and Rohan Gordon (19.53). Jovian Thompson of the National Commer-cial Bank won the female equivalent in 27.01 minutes ahead of Nicole Nicely of Passport Immi-gration and Citizenship Agency (27.54), and Tricia Martin of First Global (28.03).

Overall winner

Bruce James, president of the MVP Track Club, showed that his charges aren't the only ones who know how to be competitive as he was the overall winner of the walk section in 32.21 minutes ahead of Oral Folkes (32.38) and Ramar Meeks (33.17).

Kerry-Ann Larmond won the female walk section in 34.20 minutes in front of Tamara Thompson-Baccass (34.22) and Hyacinth Baker (38.30).

Donovan Perkins, president and chief executive officer of PanCaribbean Bank, said he was very happy with the turnout and support that they received from corporate Jamaica.

"I am very excited with the crowd that we had today," said Perkins. "We surpass our goal because we were targeting 15,000 and I think we had 16,000 persons on the road today," he said.

"We raised $15.2 million for the Victoria Jubilee Hospital," Perkins said. "We had also set a target for $15 million, which we thought would be hard to reach but somehow the numbers came out. We had a lot more companies and they brought larger teams, and as a result we had a much more successful event."