From left: Jamaica’s sprint medley quartet of Jura Levy, Shana-Gaye Tracey, Latoya McDermott and Gayon Evans, along with Shavine Hodges, who was replaced by Evans in the final, pose after collecting their medals.- Photos by Anthony Foster

THE FIFTH IAAF World Youth Championships, which were held in the Czech Republic city of Ostrava, are over and, as far as Jamaicans are concerned, it was more than a success.

It was not only because Jamaica finished fifth among the 152 countries in the medals table or sixth on points (72), nor is it because only United States (14G, 6S, 8B), Kenya (11G, 5S, 6B), Russia (10G, 5S, 5B), Germany (8G, 5S, 3B) and the Ukraine (4G, 1S, 3B) finished ahead of Jamaica.

It was, in my opinion, because the country with a little more than 2.5 million people, collected a record medal haul of two gold, five silver and two bronze, beating the eight won in Poland in 1999. That was a team headed by Veronica Campbell.

Jamaica’s Nickel Ashmeade with three medals – silver in the 100m (10.54) and bronze in the 200m ( 21.72PB) and sprint medley; McKenzie and Dexter Lee with gold in the 200m (20.67) and 100m (10.51) and bronze in the medley, were the top achievers on the boys’ side.

Latoya McDermott, who pocketed silver in the girls’ 400m (54.12) and bronze in the medley, along with Misha-Gaye DaCosta and Shermaine Williams with silver medals in the high jump (1.84 PB) and 100m hurdles (13.48) respectively, were Jamaica’s leading female performers.

Apart from the medallists Shana-Gaye Tracey, who has a personal best 57.74 for fourth in the 400m hurdles final, Dwayne Extol, whose personal best of 52.92 was only good enough for a place in the 400m hurdles semi-finals, should also be considered positives as they did their best and ran personal best times.

Shermaine Williams also ran a personal best of 13.37 in the first round of the hurdles and that was also impressive.

Head coach Michael Russell singled out DaCosta’s personal best effort of 1.84m in the high jump for silver as the best result and Tarik Batchelor’s 7.09m failure in the long jump as the biggest disappointment, and I agree with him.

He also said the medal haul was great, and again I agree, but what he did not say or talk about was the fact that we had good final leg leads in both medley relays and we faltered at the end.

The girls’ team of Gayon Evans, Jura Levy, Shana-Gaye Tracey and Latoya McDermott secured silver in 2:06.77 behind the United States (2:05.74).

From left: Nickel Ashmeade, Dexter Lee, Dwayne Extol and Ramone McKenzie of Jamaica’s sprint medley relay team pose after winning bronze.

Second place in anything is always good but first would be better and even before and during the race, I knew the coaching staff made a mistake which I believe cost us the gold.

If I was in charge, yes, I would replace Shavine Hodges with Gayon Evans on the first leg (100m), but I would not switch Tracey, who is stronger with McDermott on the anchor leg, that was a mistake, which we paid for dearly.

Mark you, both Shana-Gaye and Latoya are very good athletes, as the latter did very well for silver in the 400m, but I believe Shana-Gaye, like she did in the first round, should have been the person for the anchor leg.

The boys’ quartet of Lee, McKenzie, Ashmeade and Dwayne Extol finished third in 1:52.18 behind United States (1:51.34) and Japan (1:51.42), and again, I think we could have done better.

Again, after seeing Extol in the 400m hurdles first and second round, and again in the first round of the relays, he always weakened in the final 100m, so I would have not used him on anchor.

What happened to Rolando Berch? He was not fit, I was told, but why didn’t they use McKenzie or Ashmeade, both who have done very well for Calabar and St. Jago respectively?

Again, I was told with the workload they had on the final day, it was wise not to use them, that I will agree with, though I may have done otherwise.

Apart from the Jamaicans, two per-formances caught my eye and those were that of two Americans, Dwayne Davis, who ran 12.18 in the 110m hurdles, and William Wynne, who did 49.01 in the 400m hurdles.

Also worthy of mention, Tatyana Kalmykova of Russia walked 5,000m in 20:28.05, a distance I could not run so fast.

In total, 11 Championship records were set.

In closing, Mr. Russell, you and your coaching staff, which included Kevin Pryce and Michael Carr, and manager Trevor ‘TC’ Campbell and his assistant, Phyllis Williams, press officer Laurie Foster and general secretary Garth Gayle must be commended for good job of controlling and motivating the team.

anthony.foster@gleanerjm.com