Fashpack Liberia Marathon Trials: Young, bright hopes

The first thing that strikes you watching these guys and girls race is their age – the oldest person there was 21. Sierra Leone is a young nation. The second is their tenacity – the desire to compete, win and represent Sierra Leone. Not even that, everyone you talk to wants to race at the Olympics. The third is that these guys aren’t just runners, every single one of these trialists I talked to was still studying, at school or at college – young people like this are the bright future of the nation.

Anyway enough of this, you want to know the results.

We have our prequalified athletes

Men – Idrissa Kargbo, Challey, Victor, Tejan Jalloh

Women – Aminata Kargbo, Fatmata

As we lined up on the start of the Street Child Makeni marathon, Aminata’s mother, with a tear in her eye kissed her daughter goodbye. She seemed so proud but at the same time a little terrified at the prospect of this pint-sized 16 year-old running 26.2 miles – she stormed it and won.

The qualified athletes

Male

Mohammed Bah basking in 

Mohammed Bah Kamara – this 19 year old, awaiting the results of his West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE), dominated the field to win by almost a minute

Sheku Momoh – word on the street is that this 21 year old Nursing student had gas in the tank as he happily took 2^nd place

Mustapha Kamara – the oldest in the field, our 21 year old IT wizkid shares the same dream as Sheku – a place in the Olympics

Women

Fatmata Lome – all of our girls racing for qualification were less than 18 years old, with the youngest a 13 year old from Waterloo. Fatmata stole the show today, coming home just a minute behind the pack of male athletes

Georgina Sesay – coming in just 30 seconds behind Fatmata, this 15 year old has only been racing for a year and is certainly a hope for the future

Salma Sesay – this determined 17 year old is bidding her time to enter the army – I look forward to the time when she puts the male cadets through their paces on a run!

Salma, Georgina and Fatmata best of friends off the track

Masters

Phillip Phombro – a technician and electrician at Connaught, Phillip has been running all his life. He won the >50 year old category in the trials coming in 5 minutes behind the top man. If there is this category in Liberia, he’d be a good bet to win!

There we have it – the team. Thank you for all your donations so far and we will keep you updated on their progress over the next couple of weeks. Don't forget to donate, click here. To find out more, check out the website, video or follow us on Twitter @globalfashpack