We previously mentioned how the young talents in Lebanon are not taken care of. In the Lebanese age group championship, many of them have proven that they will be great champions if they continue on the right track.

In the Kids category, Maysa Mouawad from CSJ won the 50 meters setting a new Kids record of 7.74 seconds. At the meeting organized by CSJ on 8th June, Maysa improved her record, running a beautiful race against her teammate Farah Tayar to win with 7.61 seconds while Farah who came in second place clocked a record time of 7.72 s. Maysa continued her quest by winning the high jump competition with an excellent performance of 1.30 meters and set her second record of the championship. There is something you must know about Farah Tayyar, her talent in running, not only her speed in 50 meters, but also her resistance in the 250 meters when she clocked 38.81 seconds and her endurance on 600 meters with a superb 1:51.98, comes not only from her genes as her sister Manal Tayyar was one of the best middle distance runners few years ago, but also from the will she has when it comes to racing! The will to do her best and win! We will not discuss the performances of the boys, because these two girls left the boys behind. On another hand, in the ball throwing event, Cynthia Teddy from Champville distinguished herself from the others by throwing 32.38 meters. Same thing with Bassam Boustani from Champville with his throw at 41.78 meters!

In the Bantam category, Christina Daou from Inter-Lebanon clocked 8.38 seconds in 60 meters. She is the 3rd Bantam Girl to go under the 8.50 seconds on this distance. Maria Merhej from CSJ is doing great in Long Jump, she jumped 4.50 meters in this Championship. As a Long Jumper, I should tell you, for those who don't know, that before the 5.05 meters and the 4.64 meters that I did back n 2007 and 2006, the record was with Rosie Mansour from CSJ with 4.53 meters. Back to Charbel Mtanios, an athlete who appeared to be a very talented athlete since last year's championship, clocked 8.07 in the 60m semi-final and 8.08 in the final. He did better in 120 meters with 15.39s. Hamza Yaghi from Al Manar, ran the 1000 meters in 3:06.67 which allows him to take first place 5 seconds ahead of Wajih Tayyar, the little brother of Manal and the older brother of Farah; The incredible Tayyars. Wajih won the 2000 meters with 7:00.2 hand time. In 120m girls, 4 of them went under 18 seconds but none of the girls broke the 17 seconds barrier. In 300 meters girls, Cynthia Abdel Nour from Champville who also proved that she is a real talent last year, clocked 49.35 seconds to finish second after another talent, Zoe Dagher from Champville with 48.79 s.

We must see the difference between the performances of the young athletes today in throwing, and the performances of Sophie Hyar and Car-Joe Mehanna at their times, without forgetting of course that both of them didn't do a Seniors career and stopped at Juniors and Youth but with extraordinary performances. Our athletes today are not even able to get close to their performances, leaving the throwing in Lebanon at a low level in the championships.

Let's move now to the Midget category, with of course Jad Khoury from Champville who proved to all the Lebanese athletes, especially his older opponents that he will be a man to beat. He came back after his defeat against Salim Moukaddam (CSJ) at the Interscholar championship, to take revenge and beat him in every race, even in the semi finals of this Championship. He ran 9.37 seconds on 80 meters equaling the yet unbeatable record of Naji Dagher from Antonins. Later on, in the beautiful final between Jad and Salim, the electronic timer didn't work, knowing that it was a new one. We leave a big question mark here. So in the end Jad clocked a 8.8 seconds hand time and Salim 9.0h. They both didn't stop here. In the 150 meters, Jad won the race with 17.20 seconds improving the previous record of Anthony Mikael by 0.46s. Salim also broke this record finishing second with 17.23s. Later on, in a meeting organized by CSJ, Jad Khoury, improved the electric timing by 0.01 s to be the only owner of the 80 meters Lebanese record. At our surprise, Salim didn't appear in the starting block. In the 1000 meters, Mountasser Hamiyyah from Elite won the race with 2:59.40 when his main opponent Peter Khoury from Champville fell in the first 100 meters but continued the race and came back from the last place to the 5th. The next day Peter Khoury took his revenge and won the 2000 meters in 6:35.35. Another young talent from CSJ, is Georges Ghafari who jumped 1.74m in high jump in this championship knowing that his pb stands at 1.76m. Patrick Hanna raised the bar a little high for Georges with his 1.83 Midget record, but it doesn't mean that Georges can't over take him one day.

In the Midget Girls, Nour Mouaness (Champville) was back to win the 80m title, while her teammate Lea Obeid equaled the 150m record of Christelle Rahme, with 19.75s. Ghiya Mtayrek from Phoenicia, is following in Sara Joe Kortbawi steps, clocking 3:12.57 on 1000 meters more than 15s ahead of her opponents. She also did a great time on 2000 meters with 7:19.71! In high jump, Nourhan El Couch (Ansar), who set a new record of 1.49 meters earlier this year, easily won the title with 1.45m. Nathaly Mouawad (Champville), won both the discuss and the shot put events with 29.18m and 9.93m respectively.

When they grow up, the number of athletes diminishes, instead of growing! In the Youth and Juniors categories, I saw Joelle Feghali running the 100 meters alone! The 100 meters!! Not the 3000m steeplechase nor the hurdles.. the sprint event.. What a disappointment.

Hopefully there is always some athletes who save this part of the article, like Mahmoud Daou from CSJ, a very impressive body, who won the 100m in 11.44s and the 200m in 23.24s. Another new face on the track, this time from Inter-Lebanon, is Daniel Faddoul, who ran an impressive 1500m with 4:26.82 to over take Ahmad Chour from Phoenicia. Sara Joe Kortbawi (Champville) won the 800 and 1500 meters easily but didn't improve her performances. Corine Freiha (CSJ) did 1:03.34 on 400 meters for the first time! These were the only youth who did well in terms of performances. The Juniors, our future National Team will be Joy Abousleiman (CSJ) who did great this year after her PB in Long Jump with 5.21 meters, and Triple Jump with 10.85m. Sandy Karam (Champville) in race walking, this girl who is walking alone eveytime and is constantly improving her times! This if the fact in Lebanon, athletes compete against themselves, and that's what she is doing! Mikael Bassous (CSJ), the younger brother of Daniel Bassous, is doing a great job tis year, he won the 800 meters in 2:08.99 and the 1500m in 4:33.60. Malek Chatila (Inter-Lebanon), for the first time on the track, ran 51.16 seconds on 400 meters! Georgy Matta (CSJ) jumped 6.05 metes in Long Jump! Jad Khalil (Champville) who is playing in the first division in basketball this year jumped 1.80 meters!! I left the best for the last with Alain Saad (Inter-Lebanon) an amazing athlete with a beautiful spirit who threw 15.35 meters in Shot Put and for the second time since last year's championship throw the javelin at 43.24 meters! I will finish this article with Anthony Mikael from CSJ, who is running faster and faster each time and who did 11.09 seconds in 100 meters, to scare the Seniors in the upcoming championships! He ran the 200 meters in 22.46 seconds in this Championship leaving Rayan Tarabay almost 1 second behind.

This year, the athletes had only one meeting that was organized by the CSJ. Today the Individual Championship will start, it will be as a test for the majority. The Open Clubs that will be held in 1st 2nd and 3rd of July will be the main championship of the season, with no abroad competitions except for Gretta Taslakian who has the Asian Games, hoping that she will come back with a beautiful medal.

When we ask why there are no meetings this year, the direct and very honest answer is "Money". Let me give you an advice as an Advertising student, you should go look for money, for sponsors and for the media instead of waiting the minister to give you "Money". In this article we have more than 10 young talents, these athletes need competitions, they need you to evolve and progress, so take care of them.

Good luck to all of you for this championship!