By Morissa Lindsay
As the CARIFTA Games’ numbers continue to soar, hurdler Alika Harewood, of Talons Club, and Extreme Velocity’s Nadal Seale became the latest athletes to reach the qualifying standard.
On the opening night of the three-day Athletics Association of Barbados National Junior Championships at the Usain Bolt Sports Complex on Friday, Harewood, under the watchful eyes of her coach and former national athlete Jesse King, came out blazing in the Under-20 Girls’ 100-metre hurdles to cement her place in 14.00 seconds, dipping under the 14.30 seconds required.
Five Under-20 boys have already reached the qualifying standard in the 400m and during the preliminaries for a chance to enter the final, they all maintained their form.
The standard to reach is 48.35 seconds and Seale won his heat in 48.09 seconds and Aidan Moore, of Elite Distance Programme, clocked 48.34 seconds to qualify.
Jymarian Mallet ran 48.57 seconds for third place overall going into the final and was just outside the asking time. However, Mallet has already met the standard of 1:55.40 in the Under-20 Boys’ 800m, clocking 1:55.34 last month at the Louis Lynch Championships.
Apart from Seale and Moore, Shamari Greenidge-Lewis, of Extreme Velocity (47.40 seconds), Zachary Wall, of Quantum Leap (47.77 seconds), and Keiron Haynes, of Talons (47.94 seconds), have already qualified for the Under-20 Boys’ 400m.
Rashad Gibson, of Bosen Academy, had every reason to celebrate, clocking 14.18 seconds to reach the qualifying standard for the Under-20 Boys’ 110m hurdles, adding to his previous qualification in the 400m hurdles.
Elite Distance Programme also stole the spotlight in the distance races with CARIFTA qualifiers. Luke McIntyre, in the Boys’ 5 000m, reduced his previous meet record of 16:04.67 to 15:54.43 minutes and made the CARIFTA standard of 16.30.00 seem effortless during the 12.5-lap race.
McIntyre’s clubmate Zindzele Renwick-Williams has already made the standard for the Under-17 Boys’ 3 000m. He won the race easily in 9:31.12 minutes to take the crown as national junior champion.
For the women’s distance races, Laila McIntyre, the sister of Luke, won the 3 000m (10:37.69) and has already secured her place on the CARIFTA team, having dipped under the asking time of 10:50.00. Carlie Pipe, of Elite Distance, was second (10:48.20) and Lashay Wilkinson of Bosen Academy (10.58.56) came third.
This is an important weekend for the Barbadian juniors seeking to punch their tickets to the 53rd CARIFTA Games in Grenada from April 4-6 at the Kirani James Athletics Stadium.
