Western athletes played their part as Jamaica secured its 34th straight hold on the annual CARIFTA title, after three days of competition at the Thomas A. Robinson Stadium in Nassau, Bahamas. The young Jamaicans ended the Easter weekend event with another staggering medal haul, 82. The collection included 44 gold,27silver and 11 bronze.The host nation, Bahamas ended with 24, 6 gold, 11 silver and seven bronze. The Twin Island Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, 3 gold and 4 silver each, and bronze, were the closest finishers to the all-conquering Jamaican aggregation.
Athletes from the Westmoreland-based Petersfield continue to showcase their talents, with Ocker Myrie walking away with two medals, adding gold to her 100 metres silver. Myrie stormed to23:34 seconds to easily claim victory in the girls Under -20 200 metres. Myrie had mined silver in the 100 metres onSaturday. Meanwhile, another Western starlet,Lamara Distin, set a new lifetime best in copping the girls under-20 High Jump. Distin, a student at Vere Technical High and formerly of Rusea’s in Hanover, scaled a personal-best 1:85 metres to win the event on the final day of action. Jamaica also made a clean sweep of the sprint hurdles on the third and final day of competition, as well as the 200 metres events.
Jamaica’s 82-medal haul falls just four short of the historic and best-ever achieved 86 last year. It is also worth mentioning that on the final day of competition in this year’s staging of the event, Jamaica copped a whopping 33 medals on the final day to seal their 82-medal tally, and to ultimately maintain their stranglehold on the CARIFTA title. NL