Athletics: Pepsi Cola U-18 National Championships and Open Championships (Réduit, Mauritius) |22 May 2023

Four gold, one silver for Seychelles

Seychelles has won five medals ‒ four gold and one silver ‒ at the Pepsi Cola Under-18 National Championship and Open Championships for seniors at the Stad Maryse Justin in Réduit, Mauritius.

The competition took place over the weekend and the Seychelles contingent did not disappoint as they also put on some good performances to go with the medals won.

On the first day of competition on Saturday, Liam Barbé won the male high jump contest after clearing the bar at 1.85m and his colleague Emisha Victorin followed in his footsteps with a gold medal of her own in the female high jump with a bar of 1.45m.

Yesterday, Seychelles’ young athletes lined up in the blocks for the 400m and 800m races.

In the female 400m race, Leah Pool, who qualified for the final with a time of 1 minute 01.78 seconds (1:01.78) on Saturday, improved her time to 1:01.24 to finish first and claim the gold medal yesterday.

She was followed in the blocks by Shean Fred and he emulated her. Fred had clocked 52.40 seconds the day before and in yesterday’s 400m final he stopped the clock at 50.52 seconds to take home the gold medal.

In the male 800m final race yesterday, Tiphano Uranie was second for a silver medal with a time of 2:06.14. He had registered 2:09.76 the day before in the heats.

Seychelles was also represented in the open category. Leeroy Henriette was first in the 100m race (10.93 seconds) but did not finish the 200m event.

As for Jerold Alexis, he too lined up for the 100m and 200m races. He clocked 11.00 in the 100m and 22.39 seconds in the longer race.

Neil Azemia was second in the 400m race with a time of 49.93 seconds, while triple jumper Menjel Kilindo hopped, stepped and jumped a distance of 14.70m.

Accompanied by coaches Giovanni Fanny and Joseph Volcy who is also the head of delegation, the athletes are expected back home today.

Gerard Govinden