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Friday, January 31, 2025

T&T U20 sprint relay team upset Jamaica for Carifta gold

by

GYASI MERRIQUE
305 days ago
20240401

Trinidad and To­ba­go’s boys’ un­der-20 4x100 me­tres team stunned the de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons Ja­maica and the en­tire Ki­rani James Ath­let­ics Sta­di­um, Grena­da on Sun­day night, win­ning the event in 40.45 sec­onds on day two of 51st edi­tion of the Carif­ta Games.

The T&T quar­tet of Che Wick­ham, Mikhail By­er, Ha­keem Chi­napoo, and Dy­lan Woodruffe com­bined well to se­cure the gold medal for the first time in 19 years. Two years of the com­pe­ti­tion (2020 and 2021) were lost due to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

Iron­i­cal­ly, the last time T&T won this event was back in 2005 when To­ba­go staged the Games af­ter the ef­fects of the pas­sage of hur­ri­cane Ivan the year be­fore ren­dered Grena­da un­able to host.

That year, Mar­cus Dun­can, Ke­ston Bled­man, Rocky Caruth, and Jamil James copped gold in 41.05 sec­onds. Mar­tinique was sec­ond in 41.21 sec­onds with the Ba­hamas third in 41.50 sec­onds.

“I think it was just a smooth race. It was the best race I found. This time we were the win­ning team and hope­ful­ly in the years to come we will al­ways be the win­ning team,” said Woodruffe af­ter the vic­to­ry. “We came in as the un­der­dogs and we showed what the un­der­dogs can do.”

T&T’s win al­so broke Ja­maica’s mo­nop­oly on the event end­ing an 11-year stretch in which the Ja­maicans won the event nine times. Ba­hamas was the last team oth­er than Ja­maica to win the event, clock­ing 40.42 sec­onds in 2012.

Over­all, T&T raked in eight medals (1 gold, 2 sil­ver, and 5 bronze) on day two of the 2024 pro­gramme to bring its team tal­ly to 15 and fifth on the ta­ble in which 17 coun­tries have medals. Ja­maica leads with 49 medals (24 gold, 15 sil­ver, and 10 bronze, with the Ba­hamas sec­ond with 25 (7 gold, 9 sil­ver, and 9 bronze) and Guyana third with 5 (4 gold and 1 bronze).

Twin sis­ters Sanaa and Sole Fred­er­ick, the sur­viv­ing mem­bers from last year’s sil­ver medal-win­ning re­lay team in the girls’ un­der-20 4x100 me­tre re­lay team, re­peat­ed with an­oth­er sil­ver medal per­for­mance. Led off by Sym­pho­ny Patrick and an­chored by Alexxe Hen­ry T&T clocked 44.43 sec­onds to take sec­ond place be­hind Ja­maica who won in 43.63 sec­onds.

Sil­ver medal­list in the boys’ un­der-17 100m in­di­vid­ual sprint from Sat­ur­day, Chi­napoo al­so picked up his sec­ond medal of these Games, run­ning the sec­ond leg of an­oth­er sil­ver medal run in the un­der-17 4 x 100m re­lay team.

With Cameron Nathaniel-Pow­ell on the lead-off leg, T&T took con­trol of the race, Chi­napoo hand­ed over to Shane Came­jo on the third leg and Kae­den Her­bert an­chored T&T home to a 41.53 sec­onds clock­ing. Ja­maica won the race in 41.30 sec­onds with the Ba­hamas third in 42.30 sec­onds.

T&T’s girl’s un­der-17 4x100m re­lay quar­tet picked up one more bronze medal. Jen­ni­ah McLaren, Zi­ah To­bias, Makay­la Cu­pid, and Tian­na Richard­son clocked 47.49 sec­onds, fin­ish­ing be­hind the Ja­maicans in 45.36 sec­onds and the Ba­hamas in sec­ond in 46.28 sec­onds.

Mul­ti-dis­ci­pline ath­lete Tyrique Vin­cent is T&T’s first dou­ble-medal­list at the Games, fol­low­ing up Sat­ur­day’s long jump sil­ver with high jump bronze in the boys’ un­der-17 di­vi­sion.

Vin­cent, who placed 8th in the high jump in 2023 in Nas­sau, Ba­hamas with the best height of 1.70 me­tres, im­proved tremen­dous­ly this year with the best at­tempt record­ed at 1.90 me­tres. He need­ed just two at­tempts to nav­i­gate the height which in the end sep­a­rat­ed him from 4th placed Ja­maican, Patrick Brown who cleared the same height but need­ed three tries to do so. Both young men then had three failed at­tempts at 1.95 me­ters.

Jen­na-Marie Thomas reeled in T&T’s first medal on day two when she land­ed the bronze in the girls’ un­der-17 400m hur­dles event.

Thomas, 16, clocked 1:01.03 sec­onds for her trip around, pipped for sil­ver by Ba­hamas’ Darvinique Dean who clocked 1:00.66, with Ja­maica’s Nas­tas­sia Fletch­er claim­ing the gold medal in 1:00.10 sec­onds.

“It was a good run, I would say that I ex­e­cut­ed a very good race and I gave it my all that I had to­day. It feels great to rep­re­sent Trinidad and To­ba­go at this lev­el and I am just ex­treme­ly grate­ful,” said Thomas.

Durlaina Rouse, al­so of Team T&T fin­ished in 5th po­si­tion in 1:07.73 sec­onds.

The feat was du­pli­cat­ed in the boys’ un­der-20 di­vi­sion when Do­ri­an Charles al­so clinched bronze. Charles clocked 52.70 sec­onds and fin­ished strong­ly be­hind the Ja­maican duo of Shamer Blake who won gold in 51.21 sec­onds and Princewell Mar­tin who claimed sil­ver in 51.34 sec­onds.

Af­ter the race, Charles said, “I didn’t ex­e­cute the race how I was sup­posed to but my coach said fin­ish strong and every­thing would be fine. I feel good. This is my first medal in the 400 hur­dles so I feel good about it.”

Charles, a schol­ar­ship ath­lete at Ja­maica Col­lege in Kingston, Ja­maica added that he knew it would be a chal­leng­ing race against two fa­mil­iar ath­letes Blake who rep­re­sents St Eliz­a­beth’s in Ja­maica schools’ com­pe­ti­tion, and Mar­tin who is his team­mate at Ja­maica Col­lege.

T&T’s 4th medal of the day came in the boys’ un­der-17 3,000 me­tres race when Isa­iah Alder grabbed bronze. Alder, 16, came home in 9:29.35 sec­onds, 8.05 sec­onds slow­er than Aru­ba’s Wyn­del Beyde who clocked 9:21.30. The gold medal was won by Deme­trie Mey­ers from Be­lize in 9:05.86 sec­onds.

T&T will al­so have rep­re­sen­ta­tion in the girls’ and boys’ 800m un­der-17 fi­nals dur­ing Mon­day's pro­gramme.

Bronze medal­list in the girls’ 1500m on Sat­ur­day, Shi­an Lewis re­turned in the 800m pre­lims on Sun­day, plac­ing sec­ond in 2 min­utes, 21.16 sec­onds in heat one. The heat win­ner was Ja­maica’s Kevon­gaye Fowler in 2:17.04 and third was Ba­hamas’ Jade Knowles in 2:22.21. That fi­nal takes place at 4:45 pm on Mon­day.

Sprint­er Chi­napoo is al­so on course to pick up his sec­ond medal af­ter he qual­i­fied for Mon­day’s boys’ un­der-17 200m fi­nal which will come off at 5:55 pm.

Chi­napoo was the win­ner in heat one in a time of 21.68 sec­onds, grab­bing one of two au­to­mat­ic spots in the fi­nal ahead of Ja­maica’s Ohsane Jervis in 21.78 sec­onds. Third place fin­ish­er in that race, Zion Sam­bo from Cu­ra­cao claimed a non-au­to­mat­ic qual­i­fi­er in 22.13.

In the un­der-20 girls’ di­vi­sion, twin sis­ters Sanaa and Sole Fred­er­ick could achieve a unique feat in Mon­day’s fi­nal at 6:05 pm if they can both get on the podi­um. Sanaa, the de­fend­ing cham­pi­on in the event, clocked 23.66 sec­onds in se­mi-fi­nal the first heat, se­cur­ing one of two au­to­mat­ic spots in Mon­day’s fi­nal. A few min­utes lat­er, Sole won her heat with a time of 23.16 sec­onds.

Pre­vi­ous leader in the girl’s open hep­tathlon, Gi­an­na Paul was un­able to par­tic­i­pate in the re­main­ing three dis­ci­plines yes­ter­day, af­ter sus­tain­ing a leg strain late on Sat­ur­day af­ter­noon. With a 173-point lead in the hep­tathlon go­ing in­to the 200m, Paul pulled up with about 60 me­tres to go. The in­jury left her un­able to re­port for yes­ter­day’s three events, the long jump, the javelin, and the 800 me­tres con­test.

The team man­ag­er Je­hue Gor­don told Guardian Me­dia Sport that de­spite the de­ci­sion to with­draw the tal­ent­ed ath­lete from the re­main­der of the games in con­sid­er­a­tion for her long-term ath­lete de­vel­op­ment, she re­mains up­beat.

“We’ve de­cid­ed not to risk her since her long-term de­vel­op­ment is more im­por­tant than a medal at the Carif­ta Games,” he said.

“We will al­so make sure that she is sup­port­ed men­tal­ly but she is in a good space giv­en the out­stand­ing per­for­mance that she had on day one.”

Paul’s team­mate, Kaori Rob­ley placed fourth in the long jump (4.99 me­tres), sev­enth in the javelin (16.04 me­tres), and third in the 800m, fin­ish­ing fourth over­all with 3,889 points.

Ja­maica’s Kime­ka Smith won the event with 4,699 points, Clemen­tine Carias of Guade­loupe was sec­ond with (4,699) and Aaliyah Evans of the Ba­hamas end­ed third with 4,181 points.

In the boys’ open oc­tathlon, T&T’s Dar­ius Moore and Je­re­mi­ah Fran­cis con­tin­ued to lan­guish. Moore clocked 17.18 sec­onds in the 110m hur­dles plac­ing 4th in sec­tion 1 and 10th over­all. Fran­cis was dis­qual­i­fied from his race in sec­tion two af­ter trip­ping on the fi­nal hur­dle and com­mit­ting a lane in­fringe­ment.

Lat­er, Moore cleared 1.73 me­tres in the high jump, their event’s next dis­ci­pline, and Fran­cis cleared 1.65m.

In the penul­ti­mate dis­ci­pline, the javelin throw, France pulled in ma­jor points plac­ing sec­ond with a heave of 48.88 me­tres while Moore’s 35.28m placed him 12th in the event.

When the pair re­turned for the event’s fi­nal dis­ci­pline, the 1,500 me­tre, Fran­cis placed 6th in 5:04.19 to fin­ish 14th over­all with 4,300 points. Moore placed 15th in the 1,500m and 15th over­all with 4,009 points.


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