High expectations as 122nd Penn Relays Carnival begins today
PHILADELPHIA, USA — Expectations will be high among the over 50 Jamaican high schools and college teams as the 122nd staging of the Penn Relays Carnival gets under way at Franklin Field in Philadelphia in what is expected to be wet and cold conditions today.
The bar has been set high as last year Jamaican high schools swept all six Championships of Americas relays they contested, with Edwin Allen girls and Calabar boys winning two each, the respective 4x100m and 4x400m; Holmwood Technical won the girls’ 4x800m, while St Elizabeth Technical High School (STETHS) won the boys’ title.
Added to that Jamaican high schools won an additional six individual titles and hopes are that they will at least match the total number of wins this year.
Today the girls will open the competition with the heats of all three relays, as well as competition in the 400m hurdles; long, triple and high jumps; shot put, discus throw and javelin.
College women will also be in action in the heats of the 4x400m relays, shot put, discus throw and shot put events.
It will be the high schoolgirls who will be in the spotlight on today’s first full day of competition, where the teams will compete for places in the finals of the relays set for tomorrow afternoon.
Holmwood Technical will have a brand new team from the one that won the 4x800m relay last year, and this year’s group will seek to extend their school’s dominance in the event they have made their own here.
Vere Technical, Spalding High, Hydel and Edwin Allen are also down for the event.
Edwin Allen will start favourites in the 4x100m, while STETHS and Holmwood will challenge them in the 4x400m.
There will also be serious interest in the throwing events to be held at the newly refurbished throwing complex with newly crowned national junior record holder Shanice Love hoping to go one better than last year when she was second to Paulann Gayle of Edwin Allen High.
Love will hope to end her high school career in a blaze of glory as, after throwing 54.66m at a meet in Kingston two weeks ago, she has set her sights on the 54.29m meet record set by former Holmwood Technical thrower Gleneve Grange in 2013.
It is that mark, which was the national junior record at the time, that Love, the ISSA Champs Class One gold medallist, will also be aiming for.
Petersfield High’s Carifta Games representative Shyledeen Smith, Hydel’s Devia Brown, and St Jago’s Tracey-Ann Simms will also be in the discus event.
Shannon Kalawan of Edwin Allen will seek to extend her unbeaten season and will start favourite to win the 400m hurdles, where she will battle St Jago’s Andrenette Knight, the 2014 champion, and St Andrew Technical’s (STATHS)Linesha Thompson.
Samara Spencer of Hydel is the top-ranked athlete in the triple jump, where St Jago High’s Jodie Ann Petrie will also seek honours.
St Jago’s Tissanna Hickling is ranked number two going into the long jump championships today, where she will have teammate Annia Ashley, STATHS’s Taishia Pryce, Monief Heslop of Camperdown, and Edwin Allen’s Telesia Briscoe as company.
The high jump will feature Hydel’s Shiann Salmon, Colista Baker of Petersfield, Ashalee Brown of Immaculate Conception, and Alpha’s Gabriel Foster.
Janelle Fullerton of St Jago will lead the Jamaicans in the shot put championships, where there will also be two Excelsior High throwers, Latifah Smith and Tavia Dixon, as well as Immaculate’s Kadian Clarke.
Immaculate’s Tyefah Saunders will compete in the javelin throw.
Meanwhile, in the college women’s section, UTech and UWI-Mona are down to contest the heats of the 4x400m relays, the only college relay event with Jamaicans today.
Isheka Binns and Venique Harris, both of UWI-Mona, are down to contest the college women’s discus throw; UTech’s Jessica Noble will be in the long jump; while Genneva Greaves of UTech will be in the college women’s shot put event.