Kim Collins (File Photo)

PONCE, Puerto Rico, CMC - Former world sprint champion Kim Collins heads a long list of Caribbean athletes entered for the Ponce Grand Prix on Saturday at the Paquito Montaner Stadium.

 

Collins, the 2003 100-metre World Champion from St Kitts and Nevis, is among 14 World and Olympic medallists set to appear at the meet.

 

He is entered for the 100 metres.

 

Rising Antiguan star Brendan Christian, the reigning Pan Am Games 200-metre gold medallist, tackles a men's half-lap field that will also include Chris Lloyd, of Dominica.

 

Lloyd races in the 400 metres as well.

 

Bahamian Andrae Williams and Ato Modibo, of Trinidad and Tobago, are also in that 400-metre field, which includes African record holder Gary Kikaya of Congo.

 

Two former US Collegiate champions from the Caribbean, Jamaican Clora Williams and Tiandra Ponteen, of St Kitts and Nevis, will contest the women's 400 metres along with Grenada's Hazel-Ann Regis and Cydonie Mothersill, of the Cayman Islands.

 

Former Jamaica national champion Peta-Gaye Dowdie will race in the women's 100 metres with American star Angela Williams, who won 60-metre gold at the World Indoors in Spain earlier this year.

 

Danny McFarlane, the 400-metre hurdles silver medallist at the 2004 Athens Olympics, continues what he expects to be his farewell year in the sport, and he is down to tackle world-rated Panamanian Bayano Kamani.

 

That men’s 400 hurdles field also includes Jamaican Ian Weakley, the USA’s 2007 Pan American Games bronze medallist LaRon Bennett, and Puerto Rico’s No.1 and reigning meet champion Javier Culson.

 

In the 110-metre hurdles, Jamaican Richard Phillips will face Osaka World Championships bronze medallist David Payne, of the USA, and Canada's Guyana-born Olympic finalist Charles Allen.

 

Haiti’s 2005 Central American and Caribbean (CAC) champion Nadine Faustin and Jamaican Andrea Bliss are in the women’s sprint hurdles along with American Danielle Carruthers.

 

Jamaicans Elva Goulbourne and Chelsea Hammond are the English-speaking Caribbean entries in the women’s long jump.

 

Over 100 athletes from 24 countries are entered for the meet that will carry 18 events -- 10 men and eight women’s events.

 

CMC lw/08