Grammar School to debut at Penn Relays

The St Vincent Grammar School will be sending an eight-member team to the famed Penn Relays, set for April 27 – 29, at the University of Pennsylvania’s Franklin Field, Philadelphia, in the USA.

Among those making history for the all-boy institution will be Javon Rawlins, Ethan Myers, Zwicka Charles and Sage Primus, who will contest both the 4 x 100 and 4 x 400 metre relays. Rasheed Fontenelle will complete in the 4 x 100m quartet, with Randolph Roberts and Jevonnie Lavia, making up the rest of the 4 x 400m team.

Apart from the athletes, two parents, along with manager/chaperone Suzanna Ollivierre, the school’s headmaster Curtis King and coach Rawlson Morgan, will make up the St Vincent Grammar Schools’ debut team at the Penn Relays.

Morgan, who has been in charge of the school’s track and field programme since 2001, noted that venturing out to the Penn Relays will be a new experience and exposure for him, as well as his charges.

“It will be the highest level of competition that the boys will face thus far and we have tried to prepare them as best as we can, both physically and mentally for the occasion,” Morgan related.

“We are going to go there and give of our best, as we have heard that it will be lots of competition from schools from other parts of the world,” Morgan stated.

Noting that the school’s participation has been spoken about for some time now, Morgan was in high praise for those who worked behind the scenes to make the trip possible.

He assessed it as a big task to hold the fund-raising activities and soliciting

assistance from the local corporate sector.

Apart from the St Vincent Grammar School, the trend setters for Vincentian schools at the Penn Relays, the Thomas Saunders Secondary, will again be making the trip.

It will be the Thomas Saunders’ seventh successive visit to the Penn Relays, having had their first participation in 2011.

The Penn Relays date back to 1895 and is one of the oldest track and field events in the world.