Clydeen Mc­Don­ald

Host T&T put on an im­pres­sive per­for­mance to claim sil­ver in the men's 4x400-me­tre re­lay as the cur­tain closed on the 15th edi­tion of the Pan Amer­i­can Ju­nior Track and Field Cham­pi­onships at Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo, on Sun­day. Af­ter T&T sat in fifth po­si­tion for the first two legs of the race which were run by Jevon Matthew and De­on Lendore, T&T's Kevin Haynes pushed his team in­to third spot by pass­ing Grena­da's Akim Bowen and Cana­da's An­dre Hamil­ton.

T&T's an­chor Je­hue Gor­don se­cured the sil­ver when he passed Ja­maican Jer­maine Gayle on the back straight of the fi­nal leg but was un­able to catch Tavaris Tate, the an­chor of USA's gold­en run. T&T's fi­nal time was three min­utes, 07.70 sec­onds. USA clocked 3:03.25 to win, and Cana­da fin­ished strong­ly in 3:09.05 , for third spot. Ja­maica (3:09.79) was fourth while the Grena­da team which in­clud­ed 400m sen­sa­tion Ki­rani James was fifth in 3:11.91.

T&T end­ed its cam­paign with­out a gold medal but won four sil­ver and a bronze.

T&T's 4x400m women missed out on a medal af­ter Jes­si­ca James and Domonique Williams dropped the ba­ton on the sec­ond ex­change. The Ja­maica re­lay women were even­tu­al­ly crowned the win­ners of the event in 3:37.65, af­ter the USA, who fin­ished ahead of the Ja­maica in 3:36.34 were dis­qual­i­fied. The Ba­hamas (3:42.17) was giv­en sec­ond place while Cana­da was third in 3:44.86.

Nero, Gor­don medals

T&T's oth­er medals came from 11-time Carif­ta gold medal­list Gavyn Nero and Je­hue Gor­don. Both claimed sil­ver in their re­spec­tive events. Gor­don won his sil­ver in the men's 400m hur­dles af­ter plac­ing sec­ond to USA's William Wynne, in 50.08. Wynne's win­ning time was a new Pan Am record of 49.31, while an­oth­er Amer­i­can Regi­nald Wy­att was third in 50.61. In the men's 800m, Nero picked up his sil­ver af­ter run­ning sec­ond to Cu­ba's Raidel Acea Morales. Morales com­plet­ed the event in a win­ning time of 1:48.09, while Nero fin­ished in 1:48.90 and USA's Joseph Ab­bot (1:48.99) was third.

T&T's women 4x100m re­lay of Nyoka Giles, Kir­lene Roberts, Kai Selvon and Deb­o­rah John claimed bronze in their event af­ter com­plet­ing their lap in 45.38 to fin­ish be­hind the USA. The Amer­i­cans ran a blis­ter­ing time of 44.09 while Ja­maica was sec­ond in 44.96.

T&T's first medal at the cham­pi­onships came from dis­cus throw­er, Quin­cy Wil­son, who claimed sil­ver with is last on sixth throw in the event. Af­ter trail­ing in the event for the first three rounds, the Carif­ta gold medal­list hurled the im­ple­ment 57.90 me­tres on his sixth throw. First place in the event went to the USA's Ma­son Fin­ley with a cham­pi­onship record of 65.34m with third place go­ing to Ja­maica's Travis Smik­le with a 57.18m throw.

T&T fin­ished 12th on the medal ta­ble with first place go­ing to USA with 21 gold, 22 sil­ver and 13 bronze medals.