Athletics: Patron’s Cup-5,000m record Labonne’s new property |16 April 2007

Having evaded the challenge of her sole opponent Simone Jaffa and even lapped the senior runner, never-say-die long distance specialist Labonne easily took victory in a record time of 18 minutes 17.7 seconds (18:17.7).

Looking puzzled when yours in writing told her at the end of the competition that with the new time she had broken three records – in the youth, junior and senior categories – in just one afternoon, Labonne said:
“What? I’ve broken the Seychelles record? I didn’t follow my training as I should during the past two weeks. After I ran poorly in the 1,500m yesterday (Friday), I told myself that I would not run the 5,000m race. Then I took the start of the race to encourage Simone and after having covered six laps I wanted to give up, but my coach (Mikola Avilov) told me to run the entire race, saying I was inside the record pace. That lifted my confidence and when I lapped Simone on the 12th lap, I felt good. I’m happy to get all three records although I didn’t expect it to happen so soon,” recounted Labonne, a National Institute of Education (NIE) student who wants to become a French teacher.

The old senior and national record of 19:32.7 belonged to Nathalie Didon and the former athlete clocked that time inside the same Stad Popiler on March 14, 1998.

Anna Barra held both the youth and junior best times of 20:16.7 and like Didon, she clocked this time on March 14, 1998.

It is worth noting that the last time a local athlete broke three records in one event and on the same day was on August 14, 2000. This happened to be Diguois Natacha Bibi who pulverized Margaret Morel’s 800m record which had stood for 20 years. Her time of 2:16.85 got her the youth, junior and senior records which are still in her possession.

Day two of the competition produced a second record, this time on the field with female long jumper Janet Boniface’s first jump measured at 5.74 metres for a Seychelles youth record, improving on her old best of 5.59 metres set during the Special Events Three competition on March 3, this year.

With her longest legal leap ever, Boniface, 15, has qualified to participate in the Seventh Indian Ocean Islands Games (IOIG) in Madagascar, beating the qualifying standard of 5.70 metres.

“I’m quite happy with the record, but not with the way I jumped. After the good start, I just could not jump well,” Anse Boileau Secondary Five student Boniface, who trains seven times a week, told Sports Nation.

Although the Stad Popiler track has still not been resurfaced, local athletes are promising more national records, starting in this coming weekend’s Athletics Cup.

G. G.