Jamaica strolled to a 33rd straight hold on the Carifta Games track and field championships after once again outclassing the region at the junior level. They bagged their 41st lien on the championships that started in 1972 as the curtain came down on the 46th staging at Ergilio Hato Stadium in Willemstad, Curacao yesterday.

Jamaica won 86 medals for the third-straight year, finishing with 39 gold, 28 silver and 19 bronze but failed to equal the 42 gold medals won last year.

In 2016, Jamaica had won 42 gold, 25 silver and 19 bronze when the three-day event was held in St Kitts.

Trinidad & Tobago finished second with seven gold, 5 silver and 10 bronze, followed by The Bahamas, who won six gold, 15 silver and 10 bronze, Barbados (four gold, four silver and four bronze) and Guyana (four gold, a silver and three bronze).

Jamaicans were responsible for two records yesterday, Daniel Cope got his second of the weekend, when he won the Under-18 boys’ discus while Britany Anderson lowered the mark in the Under-18 girls’ 100m hurdles.

Cope who had smashed the record in the shot put earlier threw the discus 61.25m to break the one-year-old mark of 60.44m set by compatriot Phillipe Barnett as Cobe Graham took bronze in a personal best 52.71m.

Anderson led a clean sweep of all four sprint hurdles gold medals as after setting the ISSA Girls Champs record of 13.04s three weeks ago, ran 13.16s into a negative head wind of 2.1 metres per second, breaking the 13.29s set by teammate Janeek Brown two years ago.

Daszay Freeman was second in 13.39 seconds and Gabrielle Gibson of The Bahamas third in 14.07 seconds.

Amoi Brown was also impressive, just missing the Under-20 girls CARIFTA Record of 13.42 seconds set seven years ago by Samantha Elliot by two hundredths of a second when she ran 13.44 seconds (0.4m/s) to take the gold, just getting to the line ahead of teammate Jeneek Brown (13.49s) with Laetitia Bapte of Martinique third in 13.79s.

Dejour Russell took the Under-18 boys’ title with Jeremy Farr taking the bronze while Orlando Bennett won the Under-20 boys’ gold medal in 13.0 seconds (1.0m/s), edging the Bahamas’ Tavonte Mott (13.64) with Alex Robinson of Jamaica third in 13.72 seconds.

After winning just one gold in the 100m on Saturday, Jamaicans won two gold medals in the 200m yesterday with Michae Harriott and Michael Stephens winning the girls’ and boys’ Under-18 sections respectively.

Harriott clocked 23.73s (0.1m/s) to win her final while Stephens won in 21.30 seconds (0.9m/s) with Xavier Nairne taking bronze in 21.58 seconds and The Bahamas’ Joel Johnson taking the silver.

— Paul A Reid