Cejhae Greene

St. John’s Antigua- National youth sprinter, Cejhae Greene, is now ranked within the top five of both the 100 and 200 metres distances in the world.

This is according to the IAAF rankings, which has the Antiguan sitting at third in the 200 metres and fourth in the 100 metres in the Under-18 category.

Greene, who recently qualified for the World Juniors with times of 10.46 in the 100 metres and 21.14 in the 200 at the Central American & Caribbean (CAC) Games in El Salvador, is dominated only by Jamaica’s Jevaughn Minzie and the USA’s Kendal Williams in the 200 metres.

The 16-year-old Princess Margaret Secondary (PMS) student is ranked fourth to Minzie of Jamaica, Zharnel Hughes of Anguilla and Tremayne Aey of the USA in the 100m.

Coach Heather Samuel has congratulated Greene on his recent achievements, saying that it is an encouraging start for the youngster.

“I am very elated as a coach to see your young charges do well, not only on the local scene or the regional scene, but on the international scene. I myself would have ranked number five in the world some years ago. I think it was 2000 when just before the Olympics I was ranked as high as fifth in the world,” Samuel said.

“But for a young 16-year-old child, it is a good achievement in his age group bearing in mind that we are not talking about Antigua or at the Carifta level. We are talking about the entire world. So congratulations to him. He has worked hard and the future is really bright.”

Confronted with the question of how or what it would take to push Greene onto the next level, Samuel said that the management of the athlete is key. She added, however, that Greene’s foundation would have already been set due to a solid home base.

“As you know, both his parents are principals and very strong in terms of their academic standards for him and so it should be for any parent. His education comes first regardless to whatever his choice of extra-curricular activity is so I am sure he will be well grounded in terms of trying to achieve his academics while pursuing his athletics,” she said.

“Yes, in the past we have had that situation and I feel probably it was a little bit of mismanagement and maybe I can blame all of us so we should make sure that these young ones that are coming forward in Tahir (Walsh), Cejhae and Jared (Jarvis) and all the others do not fall in the same boat but are managed properly and making sure that the academics are first and then the athletics after,” the coach said.

Greene will compete at the World Juniors which is slated for July 10 to 15 in Barcelona, Spain.