Ten medals came T&T way on the fi­nal day of com­pe­ti­tion at the 48th Carif­ta Games at the Tru­man Bod­den Sports Com­plex in the Cay­man Is­lands on Mon­day, to end with an over­all tal­ly of 24, to place third be­hind Ja­maica (85) and the Ba­hamas (26).

The Ja­maicans ex­tend­ed their un­in­ter­rupt­ed dom­i­nance of the Games to 35 years as they col­lect­ed 36 gold, 33 sil­ver and 16 bronze, to fin­ish ahead of the Ba­hamas who fin­ished sec­ond with nine gold, sev­en sil­ver and 10 bronze while T&T sealed four gold, eight sil­ver and 12 bronze. An im­prove­ment for the na­tion­al team, who won 17 medals (4 gold, 6 sil­ver, 7 bronze) last year in the Ba­hamas when al­so plac­ing third.

Six of those 10 medals on the fi­nal day were won in the re­lays, which was dom­i­nat­ed by Ja­maica, in the evening ses­sion to close off the pre­mier an­nu­al ju­nior track and field meet. On the field, T&T had two ath­letes reach­ing the podi­um in their re­spec­tive events to add to the two medals won in the morn­ing ses­sion, Tyriq Hors­ford's gold medal in the men's U-20 javelin (71.45m), his fifth on the trot, and Kelsey Daniel's sil­ver in the men's U-20 triple-jump (15.14m).

In the open­ing re­lay event, T&T quar­tet of Reneisha An­drews, Shani­qua Bas­combe, Ka­res­sa Kir­ton and Tae­jha Badal, run­ning in that or­der, copped sil­ver in the women's U-17 4x100m fi­nal. The lo­cal sprint­ers were ef­fi­cient in their ba­ton pass­ing, cross­ing in 45.73 sec­onds to be nar­row­ly beat­en by the Ja­maican team (45.63).

In the men's ver­sion of the race, An­tho­ny Di­az, Sha­keem Mc Kay, Miguel Tay­lor and Jor­dan Pope went over the line third in 42.45 to fol­low Ja­maica team, who clocked 41.59 and the Ba­hamas (42.18).

Fac­ing the starter next was the four­some of Leah Bernard, Ak­i­lah Lewis, Nao­mi Camp­bell and Ay­la Stanis­claus, who sprint­ed to sec­ond place in 45.11 in the Women's U-20 4x100m re­lay medal race which was won in 44.25 by the Ja­maicans, who were led off by Bri­ana Williams. It was the third gold medal for the Ato Boldon-coached Williams, who com­plet­ed the sprint dou­ble in a sea­son’s best and World U-20 lead­ing 22.89 to se­cure the Austin Sealy Award for the most out­stand­ing per­former for the sec­ond year in a row.

Next up was the men's race, which saw T&T Adell Colthrust, Kion Ben­jamin, Do­minic Cole and Nicholas Wil­son just miss out on reach­ing the podi­um af­ter a fourth-place fin­ish in 40.51.

Lat­er, T&T raced in three of the four 4x400m re­lays, win­ning a sil­ver and two bronze. In the men's U-17 4x400m fi­nal, Jes­si­ah Jones, Ryan Camp­bell, Ri­nal­do Moore and Pope part­nered to place sec­ond in 3:18.71. This af­ter, in the or­der of, Ma­li­ka Coutain, Tae­jha Badal, Christie Ma­haraj and Natasha Fox placed third in the women's race 3.44.91.

In the Women's U-20 4x400m fi­nale, Tamia Badal, Ta­tian­na Matinez, Nico­la Pes­nell and Rae-Ann Serville al­so placed third with 3.41.67.

On the field, it was Jay­den Scott and Ian­na Roach, a for­mer youth "Sports­woman of the Year", mount­ing the podi­um for bronze medals. Scott got his sec­ond medal of the three-day com­pe­ti­tion in the men's U-17 dis­cus with a 47.50m-throw. On Sat­ur­day, Scott bagged bronze in the men's U-20 shot put (15.08m).

Roach re­peat­ed as the bronze-medal­list in the women's U-20 shot put with her best throw mea­sur­ing 13.51m.

Al­so com­pet­ing on the field but not ex­pe­ri­enc­ing suc­cess were, Christo­pher Craw­ford, who placed sixth in the men's U-20 shot put with 16.48m; in the women's U-17 triple jump, Am­ber Ma­hew sev­enth in 10.04m and Shaki­ra Kirk fin­ished fourth in the women's U-17 dis­cus with 39.17 and Lalenii Grant was fifth in the event with 37.40.

Hep­tathlon cham­pi­on Safiya John just missed out on a medal, plac­ing fourth in the women's U-20 100m hur­dles in 14.25 while Tamia Badal fol­lowed her to the line in fifth with 14.52. In the low­er age-group, Ka­res­sa Kir­ton placed fifth in the women's U-17 100m hur­dles in a time of 14.37.

Justin Guy chal­lenged the men's U-20 110m hur­dles fi­nal and placed fifth in 13.72 while Tyrese Rawl­ins, who was slat­ed to race in the event, did not start.

Gen­e­sis Joseph com­pet­ed in the men's 5,000m and he fin­ished fifth in 16:32.74.

Fi­nal medal count

Place*Coun­try*Gold*Sil­ver*Bronze*To­tal

1*Ja­maica*36*33*16*85

2*Ba­hamas*9*7*10*26

3*T&T*4*8*12*24

4*Guyana*4*2*4*10

5*Bar­ba­dos*3*4*4*11

6*Bermu­da*3*1*2*6

7*British Vir­gin Is­lands*1*3*3*7

8*Grena­da*1*2*4*7

9*Guade­loupe*1*1*2*4

10*Cu­ra­cao*1*1*1*3

10*Mar­tinique*1*1*1*3

12*Suri­name*1*0*1*2

13*Do­mini­ca*0*1*2*3

14*St Vin­cent*0*0*3*3

15*Cay­man*0*0*1*1

16*St Kitts*0*0*1*1