Jamaica will be hoping to add to the three medals, two silver and a bronze, they won on Tuesday’s second day of the 19th World Under-20 Championships at the Pascual Guerrero Olympic Stadium in Cali, Colombia, when the championships continues today.

Bouwahjgie Nkrumie smashed the national junior record in the men’s 100m with 10.02 seconds, Kobe Lawrence broke his own personal best in the shot put with 20.58m as both men won silver medals after the mixed 4x400m relay team had won the bronze to put Jamaica ninth on the medal table.

Today sprint hurdler Demario Prince, who ran a personal best 13.58 seconds (0.3m/s) in Tuesday’s semi-finals, will line up in the 110m hurdles final while it is expected that defending champion Tina Clayton and Serena Cole will qualify for the women’s 100m final.

Additionally today, Roshawn Clarke and Antonio Forbes will start their medal quest in the men’s 400m hurdles, while Bryan Levell will contest the men’s 200m.

Jamaica are ninth on the medals tables which is being led by the United States with two gold medals, Ethiopia with a gold and a silver and Kenya and South Africa with a gold and a bronze each.

After Monday’s good start, Jamaica started reaping the fruits Tuesday and Nkrumie and Lawrence, along with the mixed 4x400m relay team, started the medal harvest.

In the final of the men’s 100m, Nkrumie built on his solid start to take the national junior record for himself with 10.02 seconds (0.8m/s), beaten by a scintillating Word Under 20 record 9.91 seconds from Botwana’s Letsile Tebogo who successfully defended his title while South Africa’s Benjamin Richardson took the bronze medal with 10.12 seconds.

Earlier in the afternoon, Nkrumie who went into the championships with a best of 10.22 seconds set in June, had won his semi-final heat in 10.11 seconds, equalling the mark set by two Jamaicans, Yohan Blake set at the CARIFTA Games in Turks and Caicos in 2007 and Christoper Taylor set in June 2018 in Kingston.

Sandrey Davison, who was a medal favourite. failed to complete his semi-final race, crashing to the track clutching his lower leg and was taken off by medical personnel.

Tebogo, who broke the previous world junior record 9.94 seconds that he set at the World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Oregon, joined Jamaica’s Dexter Lee as the only men to win back-to-back 100m titles after Lee won titles in Poland in 2008 and Canada in 2010.

Lawrence, who had a personal best 20.02m in the shot put and who finished eighth in the event last year in Nairobi, Kenya, was brilliant in the final, extended his life time twice to end with 20.58m.

His mark is the second best-ever by a Jamaican behind national junior record holder Kevin Nedrick and the first to win a shot put medal at this level.

After fouling his first attempt, Lawrence broke his own personal best with 20.38m to move into third place and then took over the silver medal spot in the fifth round with 20.58m, jumping past both Ashinia Miller and Christopher Young into second place on the all-time Jamaican list.

American Tarick O’Hagan won with a personal best 20.73m while Germany’s Tizian Noah Lauria, the world Under-20 leader, finished third with 20.55m.

An unchanged team of Jasauna Dennis, Abigail Campbell, Malachi Johnson and Alliah Baker ran 3:19.98 seconds to win the country’s first medal of the championships.

They ran slower than Monday’s preliminaries but it took two string legs from Campbell and Baker to ensure they finished behind the USA who lowered the championships record for the second-straight day with 3:17.69 seconds while India set an Asian Ara Record 3:17.76 seconds for the silver.

Prince, who only go into the event because of an injury to Jahvel Granville, booked his spot in the semi-finals of the 110m hurdles after he was second in his semi-final in a personal best 13.58 seconds (0.3m/s) just under his previous best of 13.60 seconds.

National champion Dishaun Lamb was fourth in his semi-final in 13.76 seconds and failed to make progress.

Meanwhile Tina Clayton, who is hoping to join four other defending champions who retained their titles Tuesday, made a winning start to the defense of her women’s 100m title, winning her first round heat in 11.38 seconds (-1.0m/s).

Clayton, who has a personal best 10.96 seconds, barely got out of first gear to win the first heat and was joined by teammate Serena Cole, who won her heat in 11.39 seconds (-0.8m/s).

Meanwhile, both representatives in the men’s and women’s 400m also made progress to the semi-finals: Shaemar Uter was second in his heat with 46.66 seconds while Delano Kennedy ran a personal best 46.24 seconds for third place in his heat.

Dejanae Oakley won her women’s 400m heat in 53.70 seconds while Rickianna Russell advanced on time aftr she was fifth in her heat in 54.63 seconds.

Oneika McAnnuff made progress in the women’s 400m hurdles after running 59.45 seconds for third in her first round but Safhia Hinds failed to advance after running 1:00.97 seconds.

Brandon Pottinger qualified for the men’s high jump final after clearing 2.08m, the highest the bar went as none of of the qualifiers got the 2.16m automatic height.

— Paul Reid