By ELTON TUCKER, Assistant Sports EditorBOYS' AND GIRLS' Championships 2004 will be remembered for many things.
Morant Bay High's Wilbert Walker with three gold medals, including a record 15.74m in triple jump, was simply outstanding and the real 'Superman' of the championships, the 'Superwoman' was St. Jago's Nadina Marsh who had a record 5,282 points in the gruelling heptathlon open. Marsh also competed in Class 1 100m hurdles and high jump events.
Peta-Gaye Beckford of Holmwood piled on the points for her school with three wins, Camperdown's Renaldo Rose, still in Class 2, showed everyone that the wheels are still turning at the 'Sprint Factory' that produced Donald Quarrie and Raymond Stewart, two of Jamaica's greatest sprinters.
Vere Technical's Simone Facey confirmed that she is the fastest schoolgirl around with a brilliant record run of 22.71 seconds in the Class 1 200m to complete the sprint double while Manchester High's Denesha Morris showed that she is one for the future with a record run in the Class 4 100 metres.
In terms of real nail biting excitement all of the above have to take second place, however, to the many lead changes that took place in the boys competition in late afternoon and early evening on Saturday.
Jamaica College entered the day on 87 points, 10 ahead of Kingston College and Calabar High on 57. Calabar, with their track strength, gradually clawed their way to the front.
Ding dong battle
JC felt the heat in late afternoon and dropped out of the championship race, leaving KC and Calabar to decide the top spot. A ding-dong battle ensued all afternoon then into late evening and early night. In the end it took the final event, the boys 4x400m, to decide the champions.
KC went into the relay on 192 points, six ahead of Calabar on 186. The 'Purples' ran their hearts out to finish third and collected eight points denying Calabar who got five points for fourth. Gibson Relay champions Wolmer's won in 3:13.46.
Walker who won the Class 1 long jump on Wednesday came back Thursday to complete victory in the heptathlon and after just a day's rest went up to 15.74m to set a new triple jump record.
Early in the competition KC's Carlos Mattis did 15.63m to break the eight-year-old mark (15.46m) of Wolmer's Enrico Gordon but Walker, a real fighter, responded well with the record on his final attempt.
Beckford won the shot put open (11.75m) Class 1 discus (38.32m) and Class 1 long jump (6.23m) to emerge Class 1 champion with 27 points.
Smashing record
Facey, who missed last year's meet because of injury, flashed to a very good 11.22 in the Class 1 100m final on Friday night then on on Saturday lowered the colours of World Junior Championships silver medalist Anneisha McLaughlin with a smashing record run of 22.71 in the 200m. Facey's time beat the old mark of 22.92 set by her former schoolmate Veronica Campbell in 2001.
Rose, competing in Class 2, also crowned himself king of schoolboy sprinting. He set two excellent sprint records (10.45 in the 100m, 21.18 in the 200m) in effortless fashion and could have gone below 21 seconds if he was pressed in the 200m.
Manchester's Denesha Morris outclassed the Class 4 sprinters. She won her semi-final 100m heat on Friday evening in a record 11.93 seconds to become the first Class 4 schoolgirl to go below 12 seconds in the 100m. She had a near miss in the 200m clocking 24.73, just three-hundredths of a second off the record.
Edwin Allen's coach Michael Dyke has high hopes for Kayann Thompson at this year's World Junior Championships in the 800m and she showed why on Saturday with a record run of 2:03.75 in the Class 1 final. She beat second place Venessa Whittle of Tacius Golding by almost seven seconds and appear to have the potential at this time to go below 2:00.00 minutes. Thompson had earlier taken the Class 1 1,500m in record time on Friday night.
