T&T's Tyriq Hors­ford was tipped to win the men's Un­der-20 javelin ti­tle at the 48th edi­tion of the Carif­ta Games and he did not dis­ap­point win­ning the event at the Tru­man Bod­den Sports Com­plex in the Cay­man Is­lands, yes­ter­day.

The Mis­sis­sip­pi State Uni­ver­si­ty fresh­man suc­cess­ful­ly de­fend his crown in the morn­ing ses­sion of the fi­nal day, bag­ging an­oth­er gold for T&T and won his fifth Carif­ta gold medal in the javelin with a huge sec­ond throw of 71.45 me­tres clear­ly ahead of sec­ond place De­an­dra Collins from Grena­da with 62.00m. In third place was Ba­hami­an Hughie Sean Rolle with 60.45.

Hors­ford's il­lus­tri­ous jour­ney to his fifth javelin start­ed in 2015 when at age 15 he pro­duced a record-break­ing throw in the men's U-18 javelin land­ing the spear 70.73m to se­cure gold in the event in St Kitts.

The for­mer Sig­nal Hill stu­dent fol­lowed up a year lat­er, break­ing his own record with a 73.00m-heave to re­peat as the U-18 cham­pi­on in Grena­da. He came back in 2017, to com­plete the hat-trick of vic­to­ries in the age-group send­ing the spear 76.50m in Cu­ra­cao.

Step­ping up in the U-20 brack­et the fol­low­ing year did not in­tim­i­date Hors­ford as he scored a fourth straight gold as he threw the heav­ier spear (800g) to land the ti­tle with a 68.13m-toss in the Ba­hamas.

Al­so com­pet­ing in the event was Selvon Rochford and he placed fifth with his best throw mea­sur­ing 58.83m.

Across the field, Kelsey Daniel picked up a sil­ver for his ef­forts in the men’s U-20 triple jump. Daniel led af­ter the third round with a 15.14m jump which he du­pli­cat­ed in the fourth round but fell to sec­ond af­ter an ag­gres­sive jump from Jonathan Miller from Bar­ba­dos for 15.30m in the fifth round. These marks stood to the end.

It was the sec­ond medal for Daniel, who late Sun­day bagged a bronze in the men's long jump (7.32m) which in­creased T&T's haul to 16.

Al­so in ac­tion yes­ter­day morn­ing, was Joel An­drews in the men's pole vault open com­pe­ti­tion. He just missed out reach­ing the podi­um, plac­ing fourth with a best ef­fort of 3.60m.

On Sun­day night, it was an ac­tion-packed evening ses­sion on the sec­ond day of the re­gion­al ju­nior cham­pi­onships, with T&T adding two more gold medals, two sil­ver and four bronze to its tal­ly.

Sprint­er Shani­qua Bas­combe blazed to a first-place fin­ish in 23.36 sec­onds with a wind fac­tor of +1.0 in the women’s U-17 200m. She beat Ja­maican Bri­an­na Lyston (23.53 and St Vin­cent and the Grenadines' Ulan­da Lewis (24.09) to the line.

Bas­combe's team­mate Tae­jha Badal lined up in the fi­nal and was sixth in a time of 24.61.

In the men's ver­sion of the race, Sha­keem Mc Kay clocked a slow­er time than in the qual­i­fy­ing round (21.76), to place sixth in 22.00. There were no medals for T&T sprint­ers in the women's U-20 half-lap event ei­ther with Ay­la Stanis­claus miss­ing out on a medal plac­ing fourth in 23.99 while Ak­i­lah Lewis was sev­enth in 24.26.

For her ef­forts in the sev­en-dis­ci­pline event, Safiya John won gold in the hep­tathlon with 5,143 points while An­to­nia Sealy fin­ished in sec­ond place with 4,847. Go­ing in­to the last event, the 800m, John would have had to have a ma­jor­ly poor event not to win. In the end, she com­fort­ably placed sec­ond in 2:31.51 (674), seal­ing the deal. Sealy was fourth with a 2:41.53-clock­ing to earn 555 points.

These two ath­letes must be com­mend­ed for their en­durance and men­tal for­ti­tude through­out the two days of com­pe­ti­tion. John had scores of 14.44 (917) in the 100m hur­dles, high jump 1.64m (783), shot put 10.36m (553), 200m 25.85 (810) long jump 5.28m (637) and the javelin, 45.27m (769) while Sealy, re­spec­tive­ly had scores of 15.04 (836), 1.55m (678), 11.91m (655), 26.22 (778), 5.50m (700) and 38.86m (645).

Mean­while, An­son Moses fought for his third place over­all fin­ish with 5,107 points in the oc­tathalon that con­sists of a gru­elling eight dis­ci­plines. Ma­son's re­sults were as fol­lows: 100m 11.81 (689), long jump (720), shot put 11.00m (546), 400m 52.28 (713), 110m hur­dles (747), high jump 1.77m (602), javelin 46.68m (540) and in the last dis­ci­pline, the 1500m, placed fourth with 5:01.69 (550) just ahead of oth­er T&T ath­lete Che Rocheford, who placed third with 5.00.47 (557).

Rochford, a first-time Carif­ta com­peti­tor, came in fifth with 5,001 points. In his oth­er dis­ci­plines, Rochford re­spec­tive scores were 11.42 (769), 6.09m (606), 11.25m (561), 51.26 (757), 15.81 (754), 1.59m (457) and 46.73 (540).

In the 800m event, Christie Ma­haraj crossed fifth (2:21.71) in the women's U-17 cat­e­go­ry while in the men's ver­sion, Ryan Camp­bell's clock­ing of 2:03.27 placed him fourth. Rae-Ann Serville, who was slat­ed to com­pete in the women's U-20 race, did not start.