Improved start for Jackson

Olympic 100 metres bronze medallist Shericka Jackson earned top billing and Hydel High’s hurdling hopeful Oneka Wilson sparkled at the Fuller/Anderson Development last Saturday. Jackson and Wilson battled stiff winds at the G.C. Foster College of Physical Education and Sport.

Jackson displayed an improved start in the 60 metres final. With 2018 World Indoor finalist Remona Burchell close, Jackson gave the MVP Track Club the win in 7.32 seconds. Burchell was inches behind at 7.33. In still air, those times would have been worth 7.14 and 7.15 seconds, respectively.

Titans Track Club youngster Akeem Blake took the men’s final in 6.82 seconds. By then, the headwind was gusting at 4.8 metres per second.

Wilson looked ready to make a stout defence of the Class One 100 metres hurdles title she won at Boys and Girls’ Championships last year. Petersfield High’s Alexis James powered through her Class One heat in 14.07 seconds, with a 1.9 metres per second wind in her face. Wilson responded a heat later with a 14.07 clocking of her own, despite a 3.7 metres per second breeze.

Sadly, she missed the World Under-20 Championships final last year in Nairobi because of COVID-19 restrictions. “It was very depressing, very, very depressing. It took me a long while to get over it,” she stated. Luckily, she is young enough to target the title this year.

HIGH SCHOOL SPEEDSTER

World Under-20 100m champion Tina Clayton had run 23.68 seconds at Jamaica College (JC) on January 23 and the Edwin Allen High School speedster returned to the event at G.C. Foster. Her time - 24.54 seconds - showed how difficult the conditions were. “The breeze was very difficult to run in but I tried to do my best”, she said. As at JC, she got the outside lane but she didn’t complain. “Well, running the 200m, you have to learn to run in every lane,” she argued, “because you never know which lane you’ll run in at Champs or anywhere.”

Tajay Francis, the 2021 Class One boys’ 110 hurdles champion, had his time slowed by the bothersome headwinds, too, but after a 100 metres run clocked at 10.80 seconds at the Sprint Fest the previous evening, the Kingston College student-athlete added a 14.51 seconds performance.

He was third fastest overall but faced a stiffer headwind than Andre Harris of St Jago High School and fellow Kingston College hurdler Khalian Vitalis who clocked 14.35 and 14.43 seconds, respectively in another section.

It was calm when Samantha Pryce of Holmwood Technical High started a double of her own. She first ran the 3,000 metres in 10 minutes 45.33 seconds, the best high-school time of the year. In a show of fitness, Pryce returned to win her Class One 800 metres heat in two minutes 14.63 seconds.

The only person to beat that time was Pryce’s schoolmate Jodian Mitchell, who did 2:13.75.

JC’s J’Voughan Blake produced the quickest time in the Class One 800 metres, in one minute 51.24 seconds.