WILLIAMSFIELD, Manchester – To some, there’s room for improvement, but renowned athletics statistician Charlie Fuller reckons the High Mountain Coffee Road Race ranks among the best in the world.

On Sunday, January 27, organisers Jamaica Standard Products – manufacturers of the High Mountain Coffee brand – marked 30 years of involvement with what is said to be the Caribbean’s longest-running road race.

The 10K sweep by overseas debutants Andrew Brodeur and Jennifer Nelson was among the highlights of the meet, but Fuller believes the massive crowd support that the event continues to attract is what makes it special.

“It’s a unique, family fun meet; a carnival atmosphere,” said Fuller. “It takes in everybody in the community, not just the participants, but also the small business people.”

“The race in itself is a bit different,” he added. “It’s a gruelling route and you can’t really just (measure) performance on time. The athletes love it as a very fun race and they always want to come back.”

With each passing year the meet has grown, Fuller said, and has maintained its reputation for pitting top-class overseas athletes against the best home-grown talent.

American Edmund Burke, who has been running the race for over a decade, is the most popular overseas contestant. Now in his 40s, Burke — who won the event twice — admitted that he no longer competes to win, but is still in awe every time he takes on the challenge.

To mark his growing adoration for Jamaica, the parish of Manchester in particular, Burke — a coach at American University in Washington, DC — has been giving back to the event by teaming up with sponsors Lucozade to conduct clinics for young athletes.

“This race is now a staple on my calendar, so I have been talking to the kids about college and so on. They also get to ask questions and I try to answer them as best as possible,” Burke told the Jamaica Observer Central, moments after placing sixth in this year’s blue-ribbon event.

Brodeur and Nelson were the male and female champions, while Kirk Beckford and Damion Bent, who both represented Jamaica less than 24 hours earlier in the North America, Central America and Caribbean (NACAC) Cross Country Championships at the Manchester Golf Club in Mandeville, were second and third, respectively.

Ainsworth Daley of Discover Youth Track Club and St Elizabeth Technical schoolgirl Alethia McLaughlin claimed the 5K leg.

According to meet director Maurice Westney, this year’s staging was incident-free. “We had a very good day. No casualties and, in general, I think the times were a bit better,” said Westney.

Since its inception, the meet has been staged every year, except 2009 when the organisers had financial difficulties. But with long-standing sponsors like Lucozade and Power Services Ltd now on board, John O Minott, chairman of the organising committee, is hoping 2009 was just a one-year blip.

“Since then,” reflected Minott, “it has been difficult because a lot of people who want to come on board can’t do it because we are still going through some tough times as a nation. But luckily, we have been able to pull through with the wonderful sponsors that we have.

“Lucozade has really been tremendous over the years; they are a million-dollar partner and without Power Services we really couldn’t have an event like this,” he added.