Jamaica add three medals at Carifta Games
KINGSTON, Jamaica — Jamaica added three more medals, two gold and a silver, on Monday morning’s penultimate session at the 53rd Carifta Games at the Kirani James Athletic Stadium in St George’s, Grenada.
Despite rain delays for a second day, Zavien Bernard in the girls’ Under-20 high jump and Shamanda Wilmot in the girls’ Under-17 javelin throw won gold medals, while Talshawn Edwards won the silver medal in the boys’ Under-17 long jump.
With one session to go, Jamaica were well on their way to yet another win as they were on 47 medals, including 17 gold, 17 silver and 13 bronze.
Trinidad and Tobago are next with 26 medals— seven gold, nine silver and 10 bronze; The Bahamas had won 19 medals— six gold, eight silver and five bronze; Guyana are next with five medals— three gold, a silver and a bronze and Barbados round out the top five with nine medals— two gold, two silver and five bronze.
Bernard, who had won the Under-17 gold medal two years ago, shook off her disappointment in the long and triple jumps to equal her season’s best 1.78m to take the high jump gold.
Jah’kyla Morton won the silver medal with a British Virgin Islands national record of 1.76m while Alexandria Komolafe of Curacao was third with 1.70m.
Wilmot won a dramatic javelin competition when she threw a personal best 46.39m in the final round to pass Antigua and Barbuda’s Zonique Charles, the defending champion, who had thrown 46.27m earlier.
Curacao got another bronze from Niaviv Matrona who threw 41.52m.
Edwards, who had won the silver medal in the triple jump on Sunday, jumped 6.71m for second behind Trinidad and Tobago’s Michal Paul who had jumped 6.93m in the opening round. St Lucia’s Randal Monroe finished third with 6.60m.
Meanwhile, Jamaica have qualified two athletes in each of the three sprint hurdles preliminaries that were contested.
Macaela Gordon — 13.45 seconds (1.4m/s) and Tashana Godfrey— 13.51 seconds (1.1m/s), led the girls’ Under-17 qualifying while Tiana Marshall 13.40 seconds (1.2m/s) and Akeelah Bell 13.62 seconds (-0.3m/s) were also the fastest in the girls’ Under-20 100m hurdles races.
Romario Jibbison’s 13.76 seconds (0.9m/s) and Robert Miller’s 13.70 seconds (0.1m/s) are also through to the boys’ Under-20 110m hurdles final set for the afternoon.
— Paul A Reid
