Rusheen McDonald, a Class 1 student-athlete at Garvey Maceo High School was the big star of the Carifta Trials, held at the National Stadium East Field March 19-20. The lad, who will miss Champs due to a late entry by his school, put on a gutsy performance to win the Under-20 Boys 400.
Undefeated this season and with the Central Champs title under his belt, McDonald arrived at the Trials with a 47.92secs seasonal and personal best. He trimmed that to 47.84 in the heats.
In the final, McDonald fought off a strong challenge from Western Champs Class 1 winner Waynee Hyman of Munro to win in 47.32. Hyman finished second in 47.47secs with reigning Class 2 and Carifta Under-17 champion Lennox Williams of Manchester High third in 48.47.
Minutes later, Ashawni Mitchell of Wolmers won the B final with his best time of 2011, 48.04secs. Last year, he was fifth in the Class 1 final.
The other major highlight came in the Boys’ Under-17 1500m. Last year, Calabar’s Orville Dixon was third in the first staging of the Champs Class 3 1500. This year he has emerged as the favorite for that event. His status was fortified with a fast win at the Trials, in 4 minutes, 10.39 seconds. That effort beat a field composed mostly of Class 2 athletes and is 15 seconds faster that the Champs record.
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Chris-Ann Gordon: 53.35
in the 400m.
DPalmer-TrackLife photo
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Well known names Chris-Ann Gordon and Stefan Fennell qualified for the team comfortably. Gordon, a nine-time Champs gold medalist for Holmwood Technical, measured the pesky winds and her opponents well to win the Under-20 400m in 53.35secs. Olivia James of Vere, a 2010 Youth Olympic finalist, was second in 53.62.
Fennell, KC’s 2010 Carifta Under-20 110m hurdles silver medal winner, stepped to a winning time of 13.92s.
Though the Calabar duo of Ashinia Miller and Travis Smikle dominated the Under-20 shot and discus with marks of 18.78 and 60.34 meters, respectively, the best field event was the girls Under-20 high jump. Five girls were still jumping when the bar was raised to 1.80 meters and four would clear it.
Perhaps because of the swirling winds, 1.85 proved a height too far for all but Chanice Porter of Manchester, the 2010 Carifta Under-17 long jump champion. The others who cleared 1.80m were Peta-Gaye Reid of STETHS, Israel Ramsay of Wolmers and Kimberly Williamson, the Edwin Allen athlete who set a national junior record of 1.88m to beat Porter at Central Champs.
As can be expected, the sprints provided final adjustment points for those trying to predict Champs winners. Kemar Bailey-Cole of Racers Track Club beat Bridgeport speed merchant Jazheel Murphy, 10.41secs to 10.50secs in the Under-20 100m. Third was the Class 2 100m favorite Deshawn Jackson of Jamaica College with a fine time of 10.73.
Wolmers unveiled the speed of Raheem Robinson, finalist last year in the Class 3 100m. With Youth Olympic Champion Odean Skeen absent and reigning Class 1 100/200 champion Julian Forte running just the Under-20 100 heats, Robinson zipped 10.90 to win the Under-17 100 final.
The last sprint highlight came in the Under-20 200m final where Kimarley Brown of STETHS smoothly disconnected his rivals in 21.14secs. Other winners included Omar McLeod of Manchester in the Under-20 400m hurdles in 51.88secs and Christiania Williams of Edwin Allen, 11.39secs in the Under-20 100m.
HUBERT LAWRENCE, author of the Champs 100 book, has covered local and international athletics since 1987.