Fedrick Dacres and Danniel Thomas-Dodd won gold medals for Jamaica on Friday (13 April) at the #GoldCoast2018 Commonwealth Games in Australia.
Dacres produced a games’ record 68.20m to take the men’s discus while Thomas-Dodd’s new Jamaican record of 19.36m got the job done in the women’s shot put.
Traves Smikle, Dacres’ training partner and teammate, did enough to take silver with 63.98m while bronze went to Cyprus’ Apostolos Parellis, 63.61.
Dacres, however, apart from winning the gold, dominated the event as all his six throws were better than everyone else’s best marks in the field.
He opened with 65.55m, improved to 66.09 then made the winning mark with 68.20m before closing out with 67.14, 67.51 and 65.00m.
Thomas-Dodd, who entered the competition as the World Indoor champion, upstaged Valerie Adams of New Zealand, 18.70m. Adams was going for a record fourth straight title.
Trinidad and Tobago’s Cleopatra Borel, 18.05m was edged out by Canadian Brittany Crew, 18.32m for the bronze medal.
Natoya Goule, who put together a very good race, came away with a personal best 1:58.82secs and bronze medal in the women’s 800m.
Goule, waited patiently, but kept pace with the pack, made her move at the 600m mark and finished strong in the two-lap event, won by South African Caster Semenya, 1:56.68, a new games record.
Danielle Williams, 12.78 and Yanique Thompson, 12.97 produced silver and bronze performances respectively in the women’s 100m hurdles. The event was taken by Oluwatobiloba Amusan of Nigeria in 12.68.
Megan Tapper finished 7th in 13.18secs.
In the men’s T47 100m final (para), Tevaughn Thomas secured bronze in 11.63secs. Suwaibidu Galadima of Nigeria took the gold in 11.04.