THERE was considerable heartbreak but also much to applaud in terms of wonderful resilience and achievement for Jamaican teams across sporting disciplines in recent weeks.

The multi-sport Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland; Concacaf’s Under-20 football championship in Mexico to decide regional qualifiers for the next FIFA Men’s Under-20 World Cup; and World Athletics Under-20 Championships in Eugene, United States, are all done and dusted. But there remain talking points for sports lovers.

At the Commonwealth Games, the 76-member Jamaican team won 19 medals, with track and field taking the spotlight, as usual. Track and field athletes captured 18 medals, including 10 gold, and a number of young competitors enhanced growing reputations in Glasgow.

There was also a huge buzz in netball at the Commonwealth Games as the Sunshine Girls stunned defending champions and the globe’s top-rated team, Australia 46-45 in the semi-final.

However, a day later the Jamaican girls had to be content with the silver medal after going down 48-56 to New Zealand in the final. They had actually lost to the New Zealanders earlier in the tournament.

In Mexico, Jamaica’s young Reggae Boyz kept coming back from the brink in thrilling fashion to win or draw against Panama, Honduras, and Canada before reaching the quarter finals.

They would again meet Canada at the quarter-final stage, falling 1-3 in extra time, in what was yet another thriller.

The victory assured Canada of a place at the next Under-20 World Cup.

Despite failing to qualify, the Under-20 national team provided plentiful reasons for optimism. That’s especially against the backdrop of the Under-17s qualifying earlier this year for that age-group World Cup in Qatar from November to December.

For sure, young emerging talent will be much under the microscope as the Jamaica Football Federation plots the way forward after failure to reach the recent senior men’s FIFA World Cup in USA, Mexico, and Canada.

In Eugene, very high expectations obviously led to reports of disappointment in some quarters regarding Jamaica’s performance. Jamaica closed out the championships with eight medals — two gold, three silver, three bronze — behind the United States, Kenya, and Italy.

Italy won five medals, but ended up ahead of Jamaica on the medals table because of superior gold medal count.

In terms of points earned, Jamaica placed behind the USA and Kenya.

We agree with Mr David Riley, the Jamaican team’s technical leader, that overall our athletes turned in a “strong performance” at the global Under-20 championships.

Rising sprint star Miss Shanoya Douglas voiced her own disappointment after failing to win gold medals in the 100 metres and 200 metres — taking silver on both occasions behind the outstanding young American Miss Mia Maxwell.

Miss Douglas, who anchored the sprint relay team to the gold medal, told our reporter that she had “mixed feelings” and had only rated herself at five out of 10 for her championship performances.

We expect that those closest to her will explain to Miss Douglas that after a long, hard outdoor season in which she strived for peak conditioning twice — schools’ athletic championships in March and again for the recent global championships — she has done well.

Furthermore, as she discovered in Eugene, even the best among us will sometimes struggle to control “the controllables”.