Gordon, McFarlane mine first gold for Special Olympics Jamaica
BERLIN, Germany — Special Olympics Jamaica (SOJ) athletics team boosted the country’s medal tally to four after World Games action continued on Tuesday.
Allanika Gordon won Jamaica’s first gold medal at the 2023 Berlin Games when she finished first in the women’s 800m Level B race on the track at Olympiapark.
Shortly after, O’brian McFarlane claimed Jamaica’s second gold, running away with the men’s 800m Level B event.
In the highly competitive 200m Level A final, Richard Smikle was third. Those three medals add to the silver medal won by Kayanna Kelly in the standing long jump on Monday.
The 25-year-old Gordon clocked 3:06.66 minutes, beating Hsin Yi Chang (3:08.87) of SO Chinese Taipei and Sofia Chaparro (3:21.53) of SO Paraguay.
After the race, Gordon, the women’s captain of the athletics team, told the Jamaica Observer she was “excited, happy, and proud” of her accomplishment.
The men’s team skipper McFarlane, 29, took the men’s equivalent in 2:24.61 minutes. Hak Yin Kwok (2:25.06) of Hong Kong and Friso Roeleveld (2:26.33) of the Netherlands were second and third, respectively.
McFarlane, a gold medal winner from four years ago in the United Arab Emirates, said he stuck to his coaches’ instructions.
“My coaches always kept me focused, so I just had to go out there and get the job done. I stuck to the plan, and so I got the gold. I feel excited and it’s wonderful that I am going home back to Jamaica with more gold,” he said.
Smikle timed 23.65 seconds to finish behind Botswana’s Thuso Malasa (23.19) and Cuba’s Orlando Rodriguez Diaz (23.63).
Jamaica’s Isaiah Simms was seventh in the 200m Level B competition.
Their compatriots Moesha Rankine and Sheneel Williams were fourth and sixth, respectively, in the women’s 200m final.
The athletics Head Coach Akeem Clarke lauded the displays from the entire team.
“We managed to pull off two golden performances in the 800m, and the other athletes did Jamaica proud by running really well in those finals,” he said.
Elsewhere inside Olympiapark, SO Jamaica men’s unified football team was in a rampant mood, firing 13 goals past Palestine. Tajay Able scored six times, while Ricardo Saunders and Damion Gordon both struck twice. Clive Jarrett, Dillion Richards, and Tavarie Spencer each scored once.
The Jamaica women’s side endured a tight affair, edging SO Rwanda 4-3 with Aaliyah Treleven scoring twice and Micahlia McKoy and Britney Mowatt notching the other goals.
In volleyball action at Messe Berlin, SO Jamaica went down 22-25, 26-28 to Botswana.
In badminton unified doubles, SOJ’s Travis Ebanks and Kile Ford combined to defeat their German opponents 15-12, but the Jamaica pair lost 12-15 to both Chinese Taipei and Czech Republic.