WALTER ALIBEY
Senior Multimedia Reporter
Despite battling high-altitude conditions in Tlaxcala, Mexico, T&T’s pair of Lalenii Grant and Mekhi Guischard-Yearwood won gold medals and led a group of just fewer than a dozen athletes to podium finishes on the opening day of the NACAC Under-18 and 23 Championships yesterday.
Apart from the gold medals, the rising T&T track and field talents also ended the day with two bronze medals and a silver medal. With the T&T team arriving just a day before the start of proceedings, manager Sherwin Joseph stayed mum on making predictions, only to say he expects his charges to perform.
Guischard-Yearwood delivered a record-breaking run in the men’s 100-metre sprint for under-18s as he stopped the clock in 10.33 seconds for the gold medal, but Grant released the discus a distance of 53.72 metres for the gold medal in the women’s discus for under-23s.
Guischard-Yearwood was among two T&T qualifiers from the preliminaries, after securing a third-place finish in a time of 10.76 seconds. The Jamaican pair of Kai Kelly (10.52) and Tyler Morgan (10.68) clinched the top two qualifying spots, with J’Quan Douglas (10.74) romping to the fifth-place position behind Jahkye Brewster (10.60) of Barbados.
In the final that followed mere hours after, however, both the T&T runners improved their times, with Guischard surging to the top of the eight-man field in a record-shattering run, while his countryman Douglas had to settle for the bronze-medal-third as he stopped the clock at 10.48 seconds. Kelly, the winner of the preliminary race, also bettered his time in the title race but had to settle for the silver medal in 10.34. Barbados’ Brewster completed the top four finishers in a time of 10.50 seconds.
Meanwhile, Grant, who has made notable milestones in the sport including breaking the national junior record in the girls under-20 discus events and winning a gold medal at the Americas East Outdoor Track and Field Championships, held off Jamaican Britannie Johnson with a distance of 53.72 metres to hold off the powerful Jamaican who could only manage the silver medal position when she released the discus a distance of 52.58 metres.
Her compatriot Britannia Johnson secured the third-place finish after a throw that landed 51.72 metres. The pair of Maria Elena Hernandez and Johana Leonor Verdugo, though favoured to walk away with the top two podium prizes, instead secured positions fourth and fifth with distances of 46.98 and 42.18 metres respectively.
T&T also got silver and bronze from the athlete with the basketball name of NBA star Lebron James, and Dorian Charles in the men’s under-23 javelin. James secured the runner-up silver medal when he released the spear rod a distance of 69.24 metres, which fell about three metres short of the eventual winner, Dominican Addison James, with his throw of 72.02 metres.
Charles completed the top three finishers, with a heave of 62.70 metres.
Meanwhile, the men’s under-18 discus also saw a bronze medal coming from Jaafari Shaw, a gold medal winner at the Carifta Games earlier this year. Shaw’s distance of 54.74 metres was good enough to see him mount the podium, alongside Kamari Kennedy, the eventual gold medal winner from Jamaica in 61.53 metres.
Kazim Telesford of Grenada walked away with the silver medal with his throw of 55.92 metres.
