Apkup impressing at indoor track competition in United States

EAST Sepik athlete Isila Apkup is showing great form as an indoor track competition begins in the United States (US) junior college programme.
After posting some encouraging times over 60m and 200m in her first two competitions, the 22-year-old Ambunti native moved up a gear and clocked a sensational 400m time of 56.94 seconds at Pittsburg State University, Kansas, on Sunday (local time).
Running in the outside lane, teammate Leonie Beu held back in the first 200m and could not close in on Apkup, but still finished with a good time of 57.85s.
Ephraim Lerkin was also in great form, running under one minute, 55s for the 800m leg of the distance medley relay and followed it up with an excellent one minute, 22s in the individual 600m race.
Emmanuel Wanga, who only arrived two weeks ago, hit the ground running and recorded pleasing times of 6.98s and 49.59s in the 60m and 400m respectively.
Running in the same 400m race, Shadrick Tansi paid the price for an overly aggressive first 200m and faded in the closing stages to finish in 50.95s.
Meanwhile, national long and triple jump champion Peniel Richard started his 2021 campaign in fine style with distances of 7.15m and 15.31m respectively.
Richard returned to the US in January last year and joined the West Texas A&M programme which brought Rellie Kaputin so much success.
With last season being abandoned due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Richard has had a long and very good preparation for this year.
The Kansas-based athletes have two more competitions on their calendar before the regional championships on the weekend of Feb 20 and the national indoor championships from March 5-6