By Paul Steer, Trackalerts.com writer
As the Douglas Forrest Invitational track meet held at the National Stadium on the 16 of January 2016 came to a close, there were quite a few performances on the track and on the field that caught the eyes of spectators. The meet had the likes of Martin Manley former St. Jago 400m star at the Boys and Girls championship in 2015 who performed, and a visiting presence from our very own world 100m hurdles female champion Danielle Williams.
Even though there were no record breaking performances, the boys class one high jump saw six athletes making the podium; two with a leap of 2.05m and the other four with a leap of 2.00m. On the track the upset of the day came from the class one boys open 800m where St. Jagos’ Sean Bailey ran a time of 1:56.50seconds to beat his former teammate Martin Manley who ran a time of 1:56.97 seconds.
Manley now competes for the Cameron Blazers track club. Andrenette Knight of St. Jago showed some stamina and endurance by running 1:00.56 seconds in the 400m Hurdles for 1st. She then went to the Puma/JAAA Development Meet held at Kirkvine Sports Complex in Manchester and clocked 57.29 seconds for 5th in the Class 1 girls 400m.
On the male section of the 200m, Calabars’ Xavier Angus clocked the fastest time of the day in 21.86 seconds to win the class one event. Dejour Russel and Tyreke Wilson also of Calabar gave good performances in the class 2 section by clocking 22.48 and 22.61 seconds for 1st & 2nd respectively; and not to exclude Anthony Cox of St. Jago who also clocked 22.61 seconds for 3rd.
Christopher Taylor also of Calabar clocked 2:01.90 seconds to place third in the 800m class 2. Britany Anderson of Vere Technical gave a fair performance in the class 3 200m by clocking 24.70 seconds, the fastest of the female 200m throughout the meet.
The athletes look in fairly good shape as this 2016 track and field season starts in high gear leading up to the most awaited and anticipated event of the season, The High School Boys and Girls Championship
