KINGSTON, Jamaica – Alana Reid and Tramaine Todd salvaged some sprint pride for Jamaica with gold medals in the Girls” Under- 20 and Boys’ Under- 17 100m finals on Saturday’s opening day of the 50th CARIFTA Games at the Thomas A Robinson Stadium in Nassau, Bahamas.

On a day that saw Jamaica lead the medal tables with 20 medals- 11 gold, six silver and three bronze- but did not have a representative in the Boys’ Under -20 100m, winning two of the four gold medals went a long way to soothe some wounds.

The Bahamas were second in the tables with 11 medals- three gold, four silver and four bronze- followed by Barbados with two gold- both in the Girls’ 1500m, the Cayman Islands and Barbados won two each, while Guyana and Belize each won a gold medal.

Reid, who ran a lifetime best 10.92 seconds last week to win the Class 1 Girls’ 100m finals at the ISSA Champs, got off to a fast start and by midway the race was well ahead and held on to win with 11.17 seconds (-1.0m/s) with teammate Alexis James second in 11.53 seconds with Trinidad’s Sanaa Frederick third in 11.65 seconds.

Todd, who was impressive through the rounds, ran 10.52 seconds (1.1m/s) to beat Ishmale Rolle of the Bahamas-10.62 seconds and Ethan Sam of Grenada- 10.71 seconds.

Natrece East was fourth in the Under- 17 Girls’ 100m final won by Jahiah Nabbie of the Bahamas in 11.67 seconds (-1.0m/s), followed by Naomi London of St Lucia- 11.72 seconds and Trinidad’s Alexxe Henry- 11.81 seconds.

Davonte Howell of the Cayman Islands upset the field to win the Boys’ Under -20 gold medal, running 10.30 seconds (1.9m/s) to beat two Bahamians- Carlos Brown- 10.38 seconds and Adam Musgrove-10.44 seconds.

– Paul A Reid