NICHOLAS Romany and Aniqah Bailey were crowned the Kiss 5K champions when the TT International Marathon Festival of Events began at the Queen’s Park Savannah in Port of Spain, on Saturday.

Romany won the overall and men’s title in 15 minutes and 49 seconds (15:49.8), finishing just ahead of his training mate Sherwyn Stapleton, who clocked 15:50.3.

George Smith was a distant third in 16:49.3.

Among the women, 11-year-old Aniqua Bailey continued her dominance in local 5K events with victory in 20:19.7, ending just ahead of Jizzel Matas (13 years old) in 20:31.7.

Teresa Otero rounded off the top three in the women’s category in 20:48.2.

After the victory, Romany said, "I feel good about the win, but I am not too happy with the time because we expected to run a lot faster we wanted to hit 14:40 something or 14:50 something but I end up running 15:40 something."