Jamaica's Brandon Simpson receives the baton from teammate Pete Coley in the men's 4x400m finals. JAMAICA ended the eighth IAAF World Junior Championships in a blaze of glory yesterday.
The boys 4x400 metres team, led by individual silver medalist Brandon Simpson, won the gold medal in three minutes 06.06 seconds, the fastest time in the world this year by a junior quartet.
Germany who pushed Jamaica all the way ended up a close second in 3.06.79 while Poland were third in 3.07.05. The other members of Jamaica's winning quartet were Sekou Clarke, Aldwyn Sappleton and Pete Coley.
The 4x400m victory brought Jamaica's tally at the five-day meet to an impressive three gold, four silver and one bronze and fifth spot at the championships. Kenya topped the medals with 14 - seven gold, four silver and three bronze. Russia were second with eleven - four gold, six silver and a bronze; South Africa third - four gold, one silver and two bronze and Germany fourth - three gold, six silver and three bronze.
Jamaica's girls sprint relay and 4x400m teams both collected silver medals.
With double sprint gold medalist Veronica Campbell on the opening leg the Jamaican girls were hot favourites for the gold in the 4x100m. Germany had other ideas, however, as anchorwoman Katchi Habel ran past Nolle Graham after the Jamaican had been given a two-metre lead by Kerron Stewart on the third leg. Nadine Palmer ran the second leg. The winners clocked a world leading junior time of 43.91 while Jamaica had a season best 44.05. The bronze medal went to Sweden in a national junior record 44.78.
The boys sprint relay team of Michael Frater, Omar Brown, Winston Smith and Marvin Anderson failed to get among the medals placing fifth in the final in 40.07 after running a season best 39.94 in the heats. Great Britain, led by 100 metres champion Mark Lewis-Francis ran a Commonwealth junior record 39.05 in winning the gold. The next three finishers all ran national junior records. France took silver in 39.33, Japan the bronze in 39.47 while Trinidad and Tobago were fourth in 40.03.
The Jamaican quartet of Sheryl Morgan, Karen Gayle, Aneisha McLaughlin and Melanie Walker clocked a season-best 3.33.99 for silver in the 4x400m which was surprisingly won by Great Britain in 3.33.82, another world leading time for juniors. Romania were third in 3.34.49.
Long jumper Paul Thompson was ninth in the final. Thompson's best leap, 7.43m, came on his first attempt. He had 7.40m on the second and failed on his third.
