CAC, CARIFTA or on campus, nothing much has changed in Caribbean track and field. Jamaica are still champs.
Mona Campus couldn’t have asked for a better start to their title defence of the UWI Games yesterday, winning yet another athletics crown as the highlight of the week-long, multi-sport championships’ second day at the National Stadium.
Led by the meet’s most outstanding female athlete Ann Marie Finegan, the Pelicans amassed a meet best 373 points, topping both the women’s (182) and men’s (182) points standings by whopping margins.
It was the fourth successive track and field title for Mona, who are in search of their 18th championship overall.
Cave Hill finished second in the women’s (139.5), men’s (154) and combined team scores (293.5), leaving St Augustine to bring up the rear with 137.5, 143 and 280.5 points overall in the respective divisions.
About the only thing Mona didn’t lead was the number of records that fell on the day, as Cave Hill accounted for four of the seven new marks, including Robert Gooding’s 15.28 metre distance in the triple jump.
National cricketer Shakera Selman (39.31 metres) broke the old javelin mark while Benjamin Hood (14.19m) did likewise in the shot put, before Amanda Maximilien anchored the victorious 800m (1x1x2x400m) sprint medley relay team to a record time of one minute, 49.81 seconds.
But the day belonged to the Pelicans and, more specifically Finegan, who tallied a meet-high 28 points by copping gold in the 400 (60.32 seconds) and the 3 000 metres (12:45.12).
Mona’s star girl also added a silver medal in the discus (32.73m) for good measure, after losing out to teammate and former Barbadian CARIFTA gold medallist Keisha Walkes (41.73).
Walkes also went on to break the shot put record with a throw of 13.11 metres as one of the three new marks set by the Pelicans.
Misha Kay Dacosta jumped a record 1.65 metres in the high jump before Mona’s men stopped the clock in the 4×400 relay at 3:38.09.
One-time CARIFTA high jump gold medallist Daniel Burke gave Cave Hill a consolation victory of sorts after finishing the meet as the men’s top athlete with 24 points.
