Having previously stashed two gold medals, through Jamaicans, 2013 world youth bronze girl, Tiffany James (400m – women) and the multi-gifted, defending champion, Jaheel Hyde (400mh – men), it was a day of milder sparkle for the Caribbean at the newly named IAAF World Under-20 Championships in Athletics, held in the Zawisa Stadium in the Polish city of Bydgoszcz, now having completed its final day of exhilarating competition.

Rushell Burton of Jamaica first had Caribbean hearts pumping with ecstasy, as she came out of a blanket finish in the 100mh with the Belarussian, Elivira Herman, and USA’s Tia Jones, holding on to a silver medal in a national under-20 record of 12..87 (+2.0). 12.85 a championship record afforded Herman the top spot with Jones being relegated to the bronze with her 12.89.

The two 4 x 400m relays which drew the curtains on this repeat Bydgoszcz staging, saw the Jamaicans in the money, twice more. First up, the girls running in the order, Shannon Kalawan, Tiffany James, Stacey Williams and Junelle Bromfield – all except Williams, being one lap medalists, earlier in the competition, clocked 3:31.01, a 2016 best, for silver behind the USA whose 3:29.11 is the world under-20 leader. The first two legs took the team to a second handover with a slight lead but Williams, who had at least one journalist, asking, “Stacey who”? lost considerable ground, a bit too much for Bromfield, on anchor, to make up against the USA girl.

It was the men’s time to call a halt in proceedings and with Anthony Carpenter, Sean Bailey, Terry Thomas and Christopher Taylor, took bronze (3:04.83SB) behind two class teams in the USA (3:02.39, a world under-20 leader for gold and the Botswana quartette, with an African under-20 record of 3:02.81 for silver.
Final medal tally among the Caribbean contingent, has 12 medals overall 2 gold, 3 silver and 7 bronze. Individually, Jamaica ended in 5th spot taking in all countries with 8 medals, 2 gold, 3 silver and 3 bronze. Barbados, Trinidad & Tobago, the British Virgin Islands and Grenada are in 38th position among the nations that medaled, a slot shared by six other countries.

The most humble and sincerest of apologies are due to the Kirani James country, Grenada and its contingent at the championships, for the unpardonable omission from this website’s report, of their bronze medal in the men’s javelin scored by the young man with a world recognized name in the broadcast media arena, Anderson Peters, on Day V (Saturday, 23 July) The 18 year old, following in the footsteps of fellow Caribbean, Trinidad & Tobago’s London 2012 Olympic champion, Keshorn Walcott, who was a month before, atop the podium in the event at the World Juniors in Barcelona, threw a national under-20 record of 79.65m. The winner in a global best ever at the age level, was India’s Neeraj Chopra at 86.48m.

So, it is Bye, Bye, Bydgoszcz from the Caribbean’s undisputed number one in track and field coverage, Trackalerts.com – From Start to Finish.

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