Maggotty High School created quite a stir at the Inter-secondary Schools Sports Association (ISSA)/GraceKennedy Boys’ and Girls’ Athletics Championships at the National Stadium after winning back-to-back gold medals in the 800m events on Saturday’s final day of the five-day sporting spectacle.

In fact, Maggotty, which is located is St Elizabeth, shocked their opponents in the Class Three boys’ 800m when Jayden Brown won the event in 2:01.85 minutes ahead of Calabar’s pair of Alejandro Palmer (2:01.90) and Carlos Brison (2:02.10).

The celebrations had hardly died down as Yoshane Bown returned a few minutes later to win the boys’ Class Two event in 1:56.04 seconds. Joel Morgan from Edwin Allen was second in 1:56.44, while third went to Rashid Green from St Elizabeth Technical in 1:57.19.

Maggotty High Head Coach Terone Miller said while many persons are surprised with his boys performances, he was not because his youngsters have worked hard this season and deserved to be champions.

“It [success] is [a result] of our determination and the consistency of these boys and personal investment of their parents in the programme,” said Miller.

“I am also the driving force behind this team and it is my will and my love for the sport, and also the management of the team, our principal and the rest of the school body that is giving us some really good support,” he added.

Miller added: “I am really excited about what we have done here this year, because from this season, we laid down our makers because we had some fast times in the Class Three and Class Two 800m events, and so I am not surprised by our performances.”

Maggotty, who had their best-ever medal haul of four, also won silver medal in the Class Three for boys and bronze medal in the Class Two boys’ 1,500m events.

Miller shared that it is heartwarming for him to watch his athletes perform in the manner they do, especially with the fact they don’t have a field on campus to train.

“We are a very small school in St Elizabeth with about 1,200 students, and to come out and win four medals is massive for us,” he said. “This is the greatest Champs that we have ever had in the history of the school.”

He added: “The funniest thing about this is that we don’t have a field down there to train on, it is a little space that we have to practice on, so we would love a sponsor to come on board and support us.”

Miller stated that he is calling on persons in and around St Elizabeth to come on board and support the school’s track and field programme.

“These performances will definitely boost our programme going forward, and I just hope that more persons will come on board and support us because we need all the support that we can get,” he said.

“I am happy for these boys because most of them did not know that track and field will take them to this level so it is going to do a lot for them and for our programme,” Miller ended.