Big shot confrontation at Champs

Former Cornwall College and Calabar High School thrower Warren Barrett and expert throws coach Marlon Gayle will be watching the Boys and Girls' Champs Class 1 shot put extra keenly. Barrett and Gayle expect big putts from reigning champion Kyle Mitchell of Calabar and season-leading Petersfield High School ace Kevin Nedrick, but neither is 100 per cent sure who will win. Barrett is hoping his former Calabar training partner will win, but Gayle is simply envisaging a great duel.

Speaking at the G.C. Foster College for Sports and Physical Education, where he lectures and coaches, Gayle believes that the record of 19.52m will fall. "I think it's time for the record to go," he said at the Central Championships. He traced the ownership of the record from Ashinia Miller, who put 18.98m in 2011; to Fedrick Dacres; at 19.29m in 2013; and to the present holder, Demar Gayle, whom he coached at Edwin Allen. "If you check historically," he recalled, "Ashinia had it about two years; Dacres took it, and Dacres had it for two years."

"Demar did the very same," he recounted of young Gayle's 2015 mark of 19.52m.

"It is two years old now," pronounced the coach, "and I think it is time." His guess is based on Nedrick's outstanding 2017 season and his 20.08m throw at the CARIFTA Trials.

Barrett believes in Mitchell. "I still think Kyle can come on top," he said recently, "because both guys are capable of one big throw." Mitchell's big missile upset Barrett at Champs last year when it landed 19.27m from the circle. "That's what I've noticed about both of them," he expertly observed, "because last year, both of them threw 19m once, and it was to the shock of many."

Asked what makes the tall and athletic Nedrick so good, Gayle said, "This is a young man that loves competition, and I really admire that". But he gives Mitchell high ratings in part because of fine work by Calabar throws genius Julian Robinson. "Based on what I've seen in Kyle, it's just to put a few things together and I think from there, it should an exciting competition."

He is longing for a restaging of the 2013 shot fest between Dacres and Chadwick DaCosta from Kingston College. "That was an awesome competition," the coach said.

THRILLING SHOT PUT

The Class 1 shot put has been a thriller all season long. When Nedrick and Mitchell met at the Charlie Fuller Memorial at Manchester High in January, Mitchell took the lead with his last effort with a distance of 18.33m. The Petersfield boy cranked up a final-throw heartbreaker of 18.85m to win. He followed that with heaves of 19.05m at the STETHS Invitational and 18.94m at Western Champs.

Nevertheless, Barrett hopes that the Calabar tradition in the throws will continue. "I think that Kyle can come out on top, hopefully, with a 20m throw," he said in the knowledge that Miller's national junior record is 20.12m. "I've been talking to him and mentoring him about some things I've done last year," Barrett revealed, "and how he can improve on that, so I've been talking to him and, hopefully, if it's God's will, he'll come on top at Champs once again."

"He's a very good, very good competitor," Barrett said of Nedrick. "He's one of the best I've seen since I started track and field."