Guyana’s Cleveland Forde recorded a personal best in the half marathon at the IAAF/CAIXA event held in Rio de Janerio, Brazil on Sunday.
According to a release from the Athletic Association of Guyana (AAG) Forde placed 58th of 90 entrants and recorded a personal best time of 1:10:20 in the event.
The event, which was a point-to-point race, started at 09:15 hours, 21 degrees Celsius temperature in front of Hotel Intercontinental and wound its way through the streets of Rio to finish at the Flamingo Beaches.
Among the dignitaries in attendance was IAAF President, Mr. Lamine Diack. Cleveland’s performance placed him 11th of the 23 starters in the CAIXA South American half marathon championships which was run concurrently.
The World half marathon championships was followed at 09:45 by the staging of the Rio half marathon event which saw more than 1600 participants, the AAG release stated.
Congrats to Cleveland for doing himself and Guyana’s athletics proud … he seems to be coming back to his self.
The information from the press release is a little confusing. Actually, the name ‘Rio Half Marathon’ or ‘Rio 2008′ is the ‘IAAF World Half Marathon’ with main sponsor CAIXA. It’s just the name given to it, like the last Olympics was termed ‘Beijing 2008′.
The SouthAmerican Marathon was done simultaneously.
Also, there were 92 starters and not 90 for the World event and that gives Cleveland a better champioship result. Not that is that significant, but its a difference. However, there were 20 for the SouthAmerican version and not 23. Just putting it straight!