Distin, Housen claim triple gold medals at Western Champs
ANGELS, St Catherine — Jumpers Santino Distin and Malia Housen were individual treble gold medallists at Saturday’s staging of the County of Cornwall Athletics Association (COCAA) Western Championships at G C Foster Sports College in Angels, St Catherine.
Both swept the jumps in their respective classes.
Distin, of back-to-back boys’ champions St Elizabeth Technical High School (STETHS), was all conquering in the Class 1 jumps.
Housen, of first-time girls champions Mount Alvernia High, reigned supreme in the Class 2 and open jumps. She was also a part of the winning Medley Relay team, adding a fourth gold medal to her collection.
Four meet records were broken and a World Under-20 lead set at the championships.
Distin retained the Class 1 Boys’ high jump with 2.00m. He produced personal bests in the triple jump with 14.28m (0.3m/s) and long jump with 6.96m (-3.6m/s).
Housen won the Class 2 Girls’ high jump with 1.60m, as well as the Class 2 long jump with 5.43m (-2.1m/s). She claimed her third gold in the triple jump open with 11.28m (-0.4m/s).
There were a number of double winners, including William Knibb Memorial High’s Sanjay Seymore, who set a World Under-20 leading 10.26 seconds (1.4m/s) in the Class 1 Boys 100m semi-finals. Hours later he won the final in 10.29 seconds (1.7m/s).
Holland High’s Shanoya Douglas ran a season’s best 11.37 seconds (1.4m/s) to win the Class 1 Girls’ 100m gold medal and break the 22-year-old meet record of 11.39 set by Michelle Mattis of Manning’s School.
Rusea’s High’s Tiene Barrett won the Class 2 Boys’ 200m and 400m gold medals, while Mount Alvernia’s Giana Murray won the Class 2 Girls’ sprint double. Last year Murray won the Class 3 100m but was second in the 200m.
The other meet records came in the boys 4x400m relay as the William Knibb Memorial team of Thywaine Sterling, Jabari Matheson,
Joshua Wint and Seymour ran 3:12.74 minutes to better the 3:12.89 set last year by STETHS.
Annastaseca Blackwood of Sydney Pagon won the Class 1 Girls’ 1,500m with 4:56.60, under the previous best 5:03.54 set by Eboni Chambers in 2018.
Anastacia Richards of STETHS jumped 5.47m (0.0m/s) to beat the 5.08m set in 2020 by Deodora Griffiths.
— Paul A Reid
Mount Alvernia High athletes, staff and supporters celebrate winning the girls’ section of the COCAA Western Championships at G C Foster College, in St Catherine, on Saturday. (Photos: Paul Reid)
