Tough nuts to crack

AT THE recently held ISSA/Grace Kennedy Boys and Girls’ Athletics Championships launch, CEO of GraceKennedy, title sponsor of the Championships, Don Wehby, revealed that record breakers in the 200 metres would receive a financial boost.

Champs, sponsored to the tune of $178 million, will see record breakers in the 200 metres receiving a cash incentive of $202,000 each for their schools to mark the company’s 102nd anniversary.

However, looking across the board at the seven events involved, there may not be many takers.

Undoubtedly, the most difficult of the seven will be the Boys’ Class 1 200 metres. Usain Bolt’s record of 20.25 seconds, done in 2003, looks out of reach. Gary Card of Wolmer’s Boys’ is the event leader with 20.79 seconds, done in winning the half-lap event in the boys’ under-20 section at last weekend’s Carifa Trials.

It took 18 years to break former Vere Technical High School standout Simone Facey’s Class 1 200 metres Girls’ record of 22.71 seconds. Former Hydel High School athlete Brianna Lyston did so in 2022.

Lyston, running into a negative wind of 2.2 metres per second clocked an amazing 22.53 seconds. Nobody seems close.

Edwin Allen’s Jounaee Armstrong is the leader in Class 4 with 23.90 seconds, ahead of Shanique Williams of St Elizabeth Technical, with 24.07 seconds.

CLASS 4 200M RECORD HOLDER

Lyston is also the record holder of the Class 4 200 metres record at Champs. Competing for St Jago High School in 2017, Lyston produced 23.72 seconds and again, nobody looks close. Veneisha Pottinger of Mount Alvernia High, with a best of 25.07 seconds in winning at the Western Athletics Championships, is ahead of the pack here.

Like Lyston, former Edwin Allen sprinter Kevona Davis is the owner of two records over 200 metres. Davis’ Class 3 clocking of 23.07 seconds, done in 2017, looks supreme. A year later, Davis blasted home in 22.72 seconds in Class 2.

With a season and personal best of 23.27 seconds when winning the Class 3 event at the Corporate Area Development meet, Wolmer’s Girls’ Natrece East looks to be in striking distance here.

In Class 2, both Shanoya Douglas of Muschette High School and Sabrina Dockery of Lacovia High School have gone sub-23 seconds this season but both times were wind-aided.

At the Carifta Trials, Douglas won the under-20 half-lap event in 22.85 seconds, aided by a positive wind of 2.1 metres per second. Dockery won at the Western Athletics Championships in 22.92 seconds, where the wind reading was a positive 3.0 metres per second.

Edwin Allen’s Theianna-Lee Terrelonge, with a season’s best of 23.73 seconds in her only outing so far this season in the half-lap event, at the JAAA Puma/Fuller Anderson meet, is third best this season but has the fastest legitimate clocking over the distance in Class 2.

Probably, her clash with Douglas at ‘Champs’ could see the winner going close to Davis’ record run.

The two other records among the boys see Kingston College’s former athlete Adrian Kerr’s 21.69 Class 3 clocking in 2018 and former Calabar High’s, Christopher Taylor’s Class 2 nod of 20.80 in 2016 being put to the test.

In Class 3, Chad Brown of Calabar will go into Champs as leader in the event after his winning time of 22.38 seconds at the Corporate Area Development meet.

Muschett High’s Johan-Ramaldo Smythe has the two fastest times among Class 2 athletes going into Champs with 20.97 and 21.08 seconds, done at the Western Athletics Championships. However, his 20.97 seconds was done in a positive wind of 2.9 metres per second.