Smikle, Bernard smash discus records

DaCosta, Williams eliminated from 800m

BY KAYON RAYNOR Senior staff reporter ?raynork@jamaicaobserver.com

Sunday, March 07, 2010

TRAVIS Smikle of Calabar and Candecia Bernard of St Hugh’s High produced National Junior records (NJR) in the Under-20 Boys and Girls discus events to highlight yesterday’s opening day of the Carifta Trials at the National Stadium.

Kamal Fuller of Wolmer’s Boys’, who secured the automatic World Junior qualifying mark in the long jump, shared the spotlight, while reigning Carifta U-17 100 and 200 metres champion Jazeel Murphy of Bridgeport High did not compete due to a hamstring problem, according to coach Carl Paige.

World Youth bronze medallist Smikle broke the discus record for the second time in two weeks — again on his sixth and final throw — to win with 59.52 metres.

However, that was after Calabar teammate Chad Wright produced 59.30m on his second attempt to better Smikle’s previous national mark of 52.21m set at the UWI Gatorade Invitational on February 20. Smikle fouled his fourth and fifth attempts.

“I’m a bit surprised because when I released the discus it was actually outside of the sector, so I was saying ‘at least I tried to put up a good fight’, but then I simultaneously saw the discus turn in to the sector,” Smikle told the Sunday Observer.

“(At that point) I was saying, ‘what!... I give God thanks... I call it the hand of God, so I’m really happy,” added Smikle, who first established the mark of 57.18m at the 2009 Pan American Junior Championship in Trinidad and Tobago.

Defending Carifta Games champion Bernard of St Hugh’s produced a personal best 47.44m on her second attempt to equal the NJR record set by Melissa Gibbons in 1999. Bernard had produced 47.09m to win gold in St Lucia last year.

Fuller of Wolmer’s joined the growing list of Jamaicans with automatic qualifying marks for this summer’s World Junior Championship set for Moncton, Canada, when he leaped 7.63m into a negative headwind (-3.0 m/s) to win the U-20 long jump. The IAAF standard for the event is 7.50m.

In the meantime, the anticipated matchups on the track did not materialise for various reasons.

In Murphy’s absence, Odane Skeen of Wolmer’s Boys’ clocked a wind-assisted (+4.0 m/s) 10.43 seconds to win the U-17 100m ahead of Greenland High’s Odail Todd, 10.70.

The U-20 equivalent went to Manchester High's Brandon Tomlinson in 10.50secs (+2.9 m/s) after 2009 Carifta Games bronze medallist Kemar Bailey-Cole of Old Harbour was ejected for false-starting.

Kadisha Dallas of Holmwood with 11.75 and Natasha Morrison of Glengoffe won the girls U-17 and U-20 events, respectively.

There was an anti-climax in the U-20 Boys 800m as reigning Carifta U-17 gold medallist Waquar DaCosta of Jamaica College and Donahue Williams of Kingston College played around in the heats and failed to make the final, which went to Corey Williams of Tacius Golding in 1 minute 55.42secs. Oshane Turner won the U-17 equivalent in 1:58.04.

On the Girls' side, Sharlene Brown of Manchester clocked 2:12.12 to win the U-17 800m, while Marleena Eubanks of Edwin Allen obliged in the U-17 race with 2:17.04.

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