New Kydd on the track

A new athletics star has emerged here in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

A record-breaking performance from a 12-year-old youngster was the high point at the Girls’ High School annual athletics meet last Friday 25th. {{more}}

When a number of sports enthusiasts flocked the Arnos Vale playing field for the girls’ athletics meet on Friday, never did they expect the shocking performance from Gabriella Kydd who showed promising strides when she ran away with the Junior Champ and Victrix Ludorum titles at that event.

Crossing the line first in the Juniors 100 metres event, Kydd’s record-breaking run smashed an eight-year-old record set in 1997 by former national sprinter Sancho Lyttle!

Entering the day’s event with fresh memories from last year’s CUT Games in Jamaica, in which she took part, she scalped six hundredth of a second from Lyttle’s old record winning in a time of 12.90.

Lyttle who ran a dazzling 12.96 back in 1997, was at one point a leading junior sprinter here in St. Vincent and the Grenadines before taking up a basketball scholarship with Clarendon Junior College in Texas.

Valiantly displaying her Grimble house colours, Kydd went “red” crazy and on a rampage for a second time. Hunting for another record, her 200 metre run of 26. 89 seconds was just off target from the standing record of 26.45.

The future certainly looks promising for this young athlete and she is certainly aware of it.

When Searchlight caught up with the youngster at last week’s event, she was very optimistic about a potential athletic career. “I feel great, this is just a start for me,” said Kydd.

“I would like to continue my running and try out for an athletics scholarship in the future…I am definitely going to try and develop into a good athlete,” the Biabou lass said.

The 12 year-old athlete said she looks up to Vincentian teenage international 400 m athlete Kineke Alexander as a role model. She is hoping some day to make it to the Olympics, wearing the colours of St. Vincent and the Grenadines.