National records broken

TWO MORE Barbados national athletics records have been erased.

Days after Jonathan Jones eclipsed Elvis Forde’s long-standing 1984 men’s 400 metres mark of 45.32 seconds with a new time of 45.02 seconds, the United States-based Sonia Gaskin and Triston Gibbons have also set new records.

Middle-distance runner Gaskin finally broke Sheena Gooding’s national women’s 1500 metres record in Canada on Tuesday.

The 24-year-old Gaskin raced to 4:26.37 minutes at a meet in Toronto to erase Gaskin’s 2008 record of 4:32.64 minutes.

The time was still short of the qualifying standard of 4:22 minutes required for the Pan Am Games in Peru, August 6-10 but means Gaskin is now the holder of both the women’s 800 and 1500 metres records.

At last year’s Central American and Caribbean (CAC) Games in Barranquilla, Colombia, the former Pakinson schoolgirl, raced to a lifetime best of 2:03.13 minutes to capture the bronze medal.

Gaskin will be looking to bring down her season’s best time of 2:07.62 minutes in the 800 metres which she clocked at the Army Twilight Meet in West Point, New York, on May 9 to reach this year’s Pan Am standard of 2:04 minutes.

Meanwhile, University of Houston freshman Gibbons established a new Barbados shot put record of 17.73 metres at last weekend’s NCAA Division 1 West Region Preliminaries in Sacramento, California.

The distance surpassed his own Barbados record of 17.70 metres which he had set earlier this year as well as the qualifying standard of 16.80 metres for the North American, Central American and Caribbean (NACAC) Under-23 Championships in Mexico, July 5-7. (EZS)

DOUBLE RECORD HOLDER: Sonia Gaskin added the 1500 metres

to her national 800 record. (FP)