For most Kittitians and Nevisians the highlight of the one day event was the appearance of international track star and hometown hero, Kim Collins, who retained his title as the number one seed in the 100m, among local athletes.

Collins, who recently made headlines for his impressive successes in various invitational meets in Europe, is also a former World and Commonwealth 100m champion.

Though Sunday’s crowd was somewhat disappointing, in terms of size, the quality of the National Invitational Meet was considered to be of a high standard, with athletes from St. Kitts & Nevis, St. Vincent & the Grenadines and Trinidad & Tobago, vying for honours.

Among the top regional artistes here for the event were Darrel Browne of Trinidad, who was the Silver Medalist in the last World Championship.

Collins ran an impressive race of 10.06 to break his own record in the 100m, defeating Darrel Browne and also Trinidadian sprinter Aaron Armstrong who had to settle for second with a time of 10.27, and Darrel Browne settling for third spot with a disappointing 10.31 seconds.

Collins also helped to deliver another superb performance, this time with the Kittitian male relay team that despite its impressive run was narrowly beaten into second place with a time of 39.57 seconds.

The relay was won by Trinidad with a 39.54 second clocking.

Other outstanding Kittitian performances came from Tamika Williams in the women’s 100m, bringing home the victory for the Elite Performance team, winning in a time of 11.33 seconds, just managing to edge out Virgil Hodge, representing Extreme Velocity. Hodge placed second in a time of 11.39 seconds.

The St. Kitts & Nevis team will shortly begin its preparations for the World Championship in Korea and next year’s London Olympics.