Kirk Brown and Juliett Dinnal emerged the top male and female, respectively, in the GraceKennedy Education 5K Run in downtown Kingston yesterday.

More than 4,600 persons gathered behind the starting line at GraceKennedy's head office on Harbour Street awaiting the sound of the horn to set them off for the various categories. As the horn sounded a wave of runners took off followed by the walkers. Unfortunately, wheelchair participants turned up late and never got the chance to participate.

Fourteen minutes and 58 seconds later it was Kirk Brown, all the way from Clarendon, who crossed the line first ahead of Kevin Campbell who was second in 15:09. Third was Rupert Green in 15:19.

Brown was confident he would have won based on his two months of hard training and although he did not cover the distance in the time he had in mind he was grateful to run under 15 minutes.

"I knew that I would have won, because I was prepared and running well for the past two months," said Brown. "I thank God for the win and even though I never ran the time I had in mind, I am grateful," added Brown.

finished strongly

Manchester-based Dinnal, who has her sights set on attending G.C. Foster College, finished the race strongly passing some male runners to emerge top woman in 19 minutes 44 seconds. Dinnal has been in training for since September.

"I have been preparing from last September, but because of illness I was in and out of training. I am using these road races to be my motivation because I want to go too G.C. Foster College and I have already applied and awaiting a response," said Dinnal. Karlene Blagrove was second in the women's section in 20:04 while Janetta Robinson was third in 20:45.

Race director Alfred Francis thanked the "noble citizens" who participated in the run for being a part of the change in the lives of inner-city youths.

"Thank you very much for being a noble citizen, thank you for giving up yourselves and to better the lives of our youth," said Francis.

The objective of the Grace-Kennedy Education Run is to raise funds to support educational programmes in downtown inner city communities. The run is an initiative of the Grace and Staff Community Development Foundation.