The St Jago High boys’ 4x100m team that won the Championships of Americas title at the 2007 Penn Relays Carnival in Philadelphia are to be honoured at this April’s 127th staging of the event when they will be inducted into the Penn Relays Wall of Fame.

The team of Andre Walsh, Riker Hylton, Nickel Ashmeade and Yohan Blake were the first in the history of the event to break the 40.00-second barrier and set a then new Penn Relays record.

They will be the 13th Jamaican high school relay team to be inducted into the Wall of Fame that started in 1994 when the former Calabar High and Jamaican great Herb McKenley became the first Jamaican inductee, according to the Penn Relays website.

Since then, former Kingston College star Lennox “Billy” Miller, Cathy Rattray, Inez Turner and Diane Guthrie-Gresham have all been inducted on the Wall of Fame.

The St Jago team, only the second from the Spanish Town-based school, will have their induction at April 27-29 staging where “They, and St Jago, will be formally recognised at an induction banquet”.

The first St Jago team to be inducted was the quartet of Carlton Allen, Mark Lucas, Eaton Evans and Michael Williams that ran a carnival high school 4x800m relay record (7:35.89) in 1990, the oldest of the still-standing records.

According to information from the Penn Relays website, Vere Technical High leads the Jamaican schools with six inductions — the 1988 and 1991 girls’ 4x800m teams, the 1991 4x400m team, 1992 distance medley relay team as well as the 1998 and 2004 4x100m relay teams.

The 1998 4x800m relay team of Alwren Wallace, Catherine Scott, Inez Turner and Sherdon Smith ran 3:41.38 to win the championship and broke a carnival record that had lasted five years and was their relay win that year, the first time that feat was accomplished at the Penn Relays.

The Vere Tech girls’ distance medley team of Charlene Robinson, Avia Morgan, Janice Turner and Evette Turner established the existing carnival record of 11:40.51, which remains superior to the US high school record.

The 1998 4x100m relay team, which included two future Olympians, Veronica Campbell-Brown and Aileen Bailey, as well as Melocia Clarke and Natalee Sterling won the high school girls’ 4×100 with a meet record, 44.78 seconds, the first sub-45 run by a high school team at the relays which lasted six years.

That record was broken by another Vere Tech squad of Indira Spence, Maris Wisdom, Sharneter Stewart and Simone Facey in 2004 when they ran 44.32 seconds, the current Carnival record.

Camperdown had two teams — the 1986 and 1989 4x100m relay teams — with the earlier squad of Derrick Thomas, Carey Johnson, Ralston Wright and Garfield Campbell establishing a carnival record of 40.43 seconds, which survived as the carnival record until last year.

Other Jamaican schools on the Wall of Fame are the Holmwood Tech team that set the existing 4x400m record 3:34.75 seconds in 2001 with the team of Kerri Ann White, Karen Gayle, Aneisha McLaughlin and Sheryl Morgan.

The 1964 Kingston College 440 yards rely team that ran 42.7 seconds and was the first time a team from Jamaica competed in a championship race at the relays with the team of Grant, Rupert Hoilette, Ken Keyes and Lennox Miller.

The Calabar 4x400m that won in 1990 with the team of Chris Gallimore, Everton Rhoden, Daniel England and Hugh Powell ran 3:10.98 to win the championship and setting a carnival record that lasted four years.

It was their second record of the day, as the same team — albeit with England and Powell swapping legs — won their qualifying race in 3:11.04, breaking the meet record set five years earlier.

— Paul Reid