More gold for JA

[Sickko]

More gold for JA
Ja bag Junior Pan-Am gold in 400m hurdles, 4x400
BY PAUL A REID, Observer writer reidp@jamaicaobserver.com
Monday, August 03, 2009
Jamaica won three more medals, including two golds, as the curtains came down on the 15th Pan-American Juniors track and field Championships at the Hasely Crawford stadium in Port of Spain, Trinidad.
TRACEY... also ran on Jamaica's victorious 4x400 metre women's team
Nikita Tracey in the 400m hurdles and the women's 4x400m team won gold medals, while Daniel Dowie copped a bronze in the 400m hurdles as Jamaica finished with a total of 14 medals in the three-day meet.
Jamaica had won five medals on Friday's opening day and six on the second day.
Shermaine Williams and Rosemarie Carty won gold and silver in the 100m hurdles on the first day, while discus thrower Traves Smikle, Jodi-Ann Muir in the 400m and Jura Levy in the 100m won bronze medals.
On Saturday's second day, Nickel Ashmeade took the gold in the men's 200m, while the women's 4x100m got the silver medal; Ramone McKenzie in the 200m, Jura Levy in the women's 200m, pole vaulter K'Don Samuels and the men's 4x100m team all took bronze medals.
The 14 medals won by the Claude Grant-coached team was the best overall medal count since 2003 when Jamaica won 15 medals in Bridgetown, Barbados, and that total had just one gold won by Usain Bolt in the 200m.
The 19-year-old Tracey got the show going yesterday in the first event in the afternoon session as she won Jamaica's third gold in the 10-obstacle race in 57.82 seconds.
Dowie, who won the silver at the IAAF World Youth Championships, three weeks ago, took the bronze in 58.92 seconds just behind the United States' Dalilah Muhammad who ran 58.42 seconds after running the World Leading 56.49 seconds earlier in the year.
Tracey joins Peta-gay Gayle in 1997 and Nickesha Wilson in 2005 as the only Jamaicans to win the event, while there were three other medallists - Wynsome Cole (1991) and Patricia Hall (1999) won silver medals, while Andrea Bliss won bronze in 1999.
Tracey finished the year unbeaten over the 400m hurdles as a junior after winning at Girls' Champs, CARIFTA Games and at the Penn Relays, running the second fastest time ever at the latter.
Later in the day, the women's mile relay team of 400m bronze medallist Jodi-Ann Muir, 400m finalist Amoy Blake, Dowie and Tracey landed the gold in 3:37.65 as three-time defending champions the United States were disqualified.
The Bahamas was second in 3:42.17 and Canada third in 3:44.86.
This was Jamaica's fifth gold in the 4x400m and the first since 1997 as they have won a medal in this event in the last 10 stagings.
The men's team of 400m finalist Darrion Bent, Donahue Williams, Akeem Williams and Jermaine Gayle could only manage 3:09.79 for fourth place.
Yushani Durrant failed to record a legal mark in the long jump final, recording four foul jumps as the American Alitta Boyd won with 6.08m, two centimetres shorter than the Jamaican's personal best 6.10m set just over a month ago.

[Sickko]

Samuels breaks pole vault record

Paul Reid
Monday, August 03, 2009
K'Don Samuels broke the National Junior Record (NJR) in the pole vault for the second time since late April when he cleared 4.85m on Saturday's second day of the 15th Pan-American Junior track and field championships at the Hasely Crawford stadium in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago.

Samuels won Jamaica's first ever medal in the event at these championships when he took the bronze behind Americans Jack Whitt (5.20m) and Michael Arnold (5.10m).

Samuels first broke Jabari Ennis's record of 4.60m set at the 1999 Pan-Am Juniors in Tampa, Florida, at the Penn Relays in April when he cleared 4.80m on his way to becoming the first Jamaican ever to win the event there.

This was the second NJR set at the meet after Traves Smikle improved on his best throw in the discus throw on Friday's opening day with a mark of 57.18m to surpass the 54.42m he set at the CARIFTA Games in April.

Samuels, who holds the Under-20 record at the CARIFTA Games (4.60m) since he won last year, inexplicably failed to make a mark at this year's meet held in St Lucia.

On Saturday, Samuels opened at 4.30m then passed at 4.40m, cleared 4.50m on his first attempt, passed 4.60m before taking two vaults to clear 4.70m.

The Jamaica College student then passed at both 4.75m and 4.80m before clearing 4.85 on his first try.

Obviously tired from his exertions he attempted to go for a big clearance, passing at 4.90m before three failures at 4.95m.
SAMUELS... won Jamaica's first ever medal in the event when he took the bronze