There were no drums, but the National Stadium was rocked by some great performances from the island’s athletes as 13 records were sent tumbling from the books today.
The appreciative audience which attended the fourth day of the 2009 Powerade Barbados Secondary Schools’ Athletics Championships was wowed by performance after performance from start to finish, and what a finish it was.
The day came to an absolutely fantastic end with The Lodge Schools’ 4x100 relay bomb squad of Anthony Farrell, Fabian Norgrove, Rico Tull and Shekeim Greaves shattering the old record of 42.25 seconds, posting 41.55 in an impressive display of speed and baton passing.
On his own, Greaves ran through the field  in the Under-20 boys 100m to set a new record of 10.45 seconds, breaking Thaniya Lopez’ 10.50 from 1991.
Earlier, Sadé Sealy cemented her name in track and field lore, breaking Yolande Straughn's 400m record which was set at the very first championships in 1985. Looking unhurried as usual, Sealy posted 54.94 seconds, beating the 55.05 mark.
The tone was set from early in the morning by Jerrad Mason of Harrison College in the junior boys’ 1500 metres, eliminating a 20-year mark by clocking 4 minutes 27.48 seconds to erase Julian Boxill’s 4:32.70. He returned later in the day to win the 800 in a record of 2:00.08, improving his own time of 2:04.96 set in the heats.
Anthonio Mascoll of Ellerslie ran a very clever race to win the Under-17 boys’ event in a record 4:15.36, erasing the 4:16.23 set by Matthew Wright last year.
The records also tumbled in the sprint hurdles. Sadé-Mariah Greenidge of Springer Memorial clocked 14.22 seconds in the Under-17 girls’ 100m hurdles; Raphael Jordan of Queen’s College continued his rapid rate of improvement, dropping his best from 13.28 to 12.99, shattering Tyrell Forde’s 13.26 in the process and Shakera Hall of Coleridge and Parry broke Keitha Moseley’s 14-year mark of 11.80, posting 11.51 in the 75m hurdles.
Shae Nurse of The Lodge School clocked 24.05 seconds in the Under-13 boys’ 200 metres, but was beaten in the final by Mario Burke in 24.60 seconds, the same time as Akela Jones who set a new record in slamming the Under-15 field. Jones also duplicated her best in the high jump with 1.81 metres, shattering the 1.69 formerly held by Desirée Crichlow.
At the end of the day, defending champions Springer Memorial lead by nearly 100 points with 227.5 and kings Queen’s College lead the boys with 208.5.