Jamaica’s track and field contingent to the 6th Commonwealth Youth Games that ended at the Thomas A Robinson Stadium in Nassau, Bahamas on Sunday returned home on Tuesday after a seven-medal haul, two gold, two silver and three bronze medals.

Hurdlers Shanette Allison in the 100m and Johnelle Thomas in the 400m won their events on Saturday and Sunday, respectively, and head coach Michael McIntosh hailed the performance of the entire team.

“The athletes represented self and country with distinction. When you think that three quarters of the team were performing at this level for the very first time, we were pleased with how the acquitted themselves,” he told the Jamaica Observer.

He singled out Allison, Thomas and Terice Steen, the bronze medallist in the 400m hurdles as “outstanding”. Thomas and Steen, in their efforts, got life time bests.

“The team did very well and the camp we had helped in this regards,” McIntosh added.

On Saturday, Allison won the country’s first gold of the event when she clocked 13.26 seconds to win the 100m hurdles, beating Lateisha Willis of Australia in 13.55 seconds, while Canada’s Katarina Vlahovic was third in 13.58 seconds.

Tarjmar Miller was fifth in 110m hurdles, running 14.00 seconds.

On Sunday, Thomas and Steen both lowered their personal best times as they won gold and bronze, sandwiching Canada’s Sharelle Samuels, who took silver in 59.59 seconds.

Thomas won with 59.40 seconds and Steen clocked 1:00.68 minutes.

Meanwhile, Kevon Stone who had won the silver medal in the boys 100m, just missed the bronze in the 200m when he finished fourth in 21.67, edged by England’s Chad Miller by two-hundredths of a second (21.65 seconds), while another English runner Aaron Sexton won the gold medal with 21.57 seconds. Daniel Mahautiere of Dominica was second in 21.61 seconds.

Tarees Rhoden was sixth in the boys 800m in 1:56.41 minutes as the mixed 4x400m relay team was fifth in their final. But the mixed 4x200m team was disqualified.

— Paul Reid