April 22-28, 2017
Sports National
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TURKS AND CAICOS WEEKLY NEWS
Colby Jennings (right) finished with a bronze medal in the U18 400M race.
Akia Guerrier, Shavell Sutherland, Helcyann Sauver and anchor Sanadia Forbes ran the fastest time ever by a TCI female relay team.
TCI finish ahead of four countries at CARIFTA Games TCI finished 13th overall during the Easter weekend in the Flow CARIFTA Games after copping three medals in the Dutch Caribbean island of Curacao. Multi-events specialist Wikenson Fenelon won a silver medal in the Octathlon; while Colby Jennings and the girls’ U20 relay team won bronze in the U18 400M and the U20 4X100M relay respectively. A few national records were also broken. With the three medals, our athletes
finished ahead of Grenada, French Guiana, Guadeloupe and Bermuda. Jamaica dominated the Games with 86 medals. Coach of the team, Randy Ford said he was encouraged with the performance and determination of the athletes at the Games. FEMALE POWER Unlike previous years, the females led from the front. Not only did the older girls race to a bronze medal,
they did it in the fastest time ever by a TCI female relay team. The 48.85s (led by Akia Guerrier, Shavell Sutherland, Helcyann Sauver and anchor Sanadia Forbes) easily eclipsed the 50.02s made in 2007 when CARIFTA was held at the National Stadium in Providenciales. Forbes, who broke Mary Lightbourne’s (now Mary Kemp) high jump record in March, also increased her height. The record stood at 1.58M for 34 years before
Forbes jumped 1.63M. She leaped 1.65M in Curacao for a fifth place finish at the Games. Guerrier finished fifth in the 200M final with a time of 24.61s. The U18 girls (Zoe Butler, Deajah Smith, Rebecca Bernadin and Roshana Grey) ran 51.36s—a new national U18 record. The younger girls placed seventh overall in the event. BRONZE IN THE 400M
Colby Jennings, who goes to school in Jamaica, dropped over a second to take bronze in the 400M. His 48.26s is a new PB in the event. Jennings clocked the best preliminary time on Saturday morning. His 48.36s was almost a second fastest than the second place finisher in heat 4 and .3s fastest than the second place finisher overall. Jennings also ran a PB in the 200M. His 21.78s earned him a sixth place overall finish.
Fenelon haunted by gold medal loss
Wikenson Fenelon was outstanding in his first ever Octathlon.
SILVER medallist at the 2017 CARIFTA Games Wikenson Fenelon has completed the Octathlon several times in his head since he ran it last weekend in Curacao—and all the time he has found ways of scoring two additional points which would have handed the gold medal. Fenelon tallied 5460 points after the eight events in the Dutch Caribbean island; it was one less than the 5461 that won Barbadian Aaron Worrell the gold medal. Although there were numerous
times where a point or two were possible, the 17-year-old TC Islander feels that his first event, the 100M dash caused him the gold. The Jamaica College student won his heat in a time of 11.02s, for 856 points, .23s fastest than the second place finisher. Worrell however ran the second heat and clocked 10.84s, which handed him 41 extra points. “I relaxed coming through the line, which made me loose points. Dipping at the line would have given me gold.” The multi-event competitor
said that he has learned a valuable lesson and would always finish hard. Fenelon, competing in his first Octathlon, won the long jump (6.83M) and the 110M hurdles (14.60s), while he finished third in the 400M (50.55s) and in the high jump (1.87M). He clocked 5:10.28s for a fifth place finish in the 1500M, while he threw the javelin 41.11M (sixth place) and the shot put 10.16M (seventh place). Teammate, Tremaine Missick, finished with 4097 points for a 10th place finish.