Atoms' Payne, Vaughn for B/dos track meet
By Michael DaSilva
Stabroek News
June 22, 2002
Atoms Athletic Club's Tai Payne and Michelle Vaughn, left Guyana yesterday for Barbados, to contest that Island's National Track and Field Championships, billed for the Barbados National Stadium today and tomorrow.
According to Atoms' coach Foster Sampson, Payne, just off a silver medal winning performance at the Desmond E. Braxter Central Games, held at the Ato Boldon Stadium, Trinidad, will contest the men's 800-metre event at the Barbados meet, while Vaughn will do battle in the women's long and triple jumps.
Payne, sponsored in full by Mings Products and Services Limited, will be seeking to better his best time over the 800-metre tonight, while Vaughn, sponsored by Kishun Bacchus Construction Company, will be hoping to make the qualifying standard for the World Juniors Championships, slated for Jamaica later this year.
Vaughn will contest the long jump tonight, and the triple jump tomorrow night.
When she competed at the Whitsuntide Games in Grenada earlier this year, Vaughn recorded 6.14 metres for the long jump, while the qualifying standard for the World Juniors is 6.15-metre.
According to Sampson, Vaughn's 6.14-metre performance at the Whitsuntide Games, is by far better than the distance done by the winner of the gold medal at this year's junior Carifta Games in the Bahamas.
Sampson told Stabroek Sport that Vaughn who won the 100 and 200-metre sprint events at the Amateur Athletic Association of Guyana's (AAA) National Senior Championships earlier this year, is not far off the World Juniors qualifying standard for the triple jump either.
According to Sampson, the triple jump qualifying standard is 12.59-metre and Vaughn is close to 12-metre.
"I'm reckoning that the 12.59 is within her capability" Sampson opined.
Sampson, an engineer by profession, said when Vaughn first attempted the long jump, it was at the Hampton Games in Trinidad where she won a silver medal. She had jumped 5.89 metres then.
Sampson is very optimistic that Payne can better the one minute 51 seconds he registered for the 800-metre at the just concluded Trinidad meet.
Sampson is hoping that his charge can return one minute 47 seconds for the event, thereby qualifying for the World Juniors.
When he contested the men's 800-metre in Trinidad earlier this week, Payne was beaten by a US based Trinidadian who has a senior ranking on the American circuit. The winner clocked one minute 47 seconds.
Meanwhile, Clevland Forde who won a silver medal in the men's 5000-metre at the just concluded Trinidad meet, returned a personal best time for the distance. He registered 15 minutes 27 seconds, bettering his previous time of 15 minutes 38 seconds, a difference of 11 seconds.