Five J'cans win indoors at the weekend

Jamaicans had a successful weekend in two meets on the US indoor track and field circuit. Natoya Goule led a quartet of Jamaicans winners at the Orange and Purple meet in South Carolina with a comfortable victory over 600m on January 6. Elsewhere, former Holmwood Technical High School team member Xuxa Peart crossed the line first in a 500m race in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Goule, a middle-distance standout at Manchester High, South Plains College, Louisiana State University and Clemson University, was well ahead of fellow Jamaican Fellan Ferguson with a time of 1:28.20. Ferguson trailed the 2016 800m Olympian by more than three seconds and stopped the clock at 1:32.26.

The other Jamaican winners at this meet were Ashinia Miller, Jeanine Williams and Toveo Jenkins. Miller, the former Calabar High and University of Georgia thrower, won the shot put with an encouraging early mark of 19.79m. Williams, a noted sprinter/hurdler at Immaculate Conception High, took the 60m hurdles in 8.20 seconds for Georgia Tech University with Jenkins, a Herbert Morrison and Johnson C. Smith University graduate, winning the 400m in 53.94 seconds.

SECOND-PLACE FINISHERS

A trio of Jamaican Boys and Girls' Championships gold-medal winners placed second in their respective events. Sabina Allen of Campbell University, who won the triple jump for Vere Technical before moving to St Jago High, bounced out 13.33m, a Big South Conference record. Clayton Brown, an all-round jump star for Jamaica College, cleared 2.15m in the high jump and Gleneve Grange, a much medalled Holmwood throwing machine, pushed her shot out to 16.16m.

Brown and 2017 World Championships thrower Grange currently attend the University of Florida and Florida State University, respectively.

There was just one Jamaican winner with at the LSU Purple Tiger indoor event in Louisiana and that was Peart. Now attending the Southern University at New Orleans, the former Holmwood relay stalwart covered the 500m distance in 1:16.38.

Rio Olympics long jump finalist Damar Forbes put in some speed work in the men's 60m at the same Baton Rouge meet. He clocked 6.79 seconds for fifth place in a race where the winning time was 6.71 seconds.