03052018 sports

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SPORTS SECTION E

MONDAY, MARCH 5, 2018

Charlton lowers her national record in the 60m hurdles By BRENT STUBBS Senior Sports Reporter bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

too much school and it’s in the middle of the outdoor season. My coaches wouldn’t release me for that, but I’m very much looking forward to the summer meets and representing Team Bahamas.” Team Bahamas had one other competitor in action on Saturday. National record holder Warren Fraser got out of the preliminaries of the men’s 60m, running 8.17 for second in his heat and 13th overall. He went to the semi-final where he was sixth in his heat in 6.66 for 15th overall, failing to get into the final where American world record holder Christian Coleman established a new championship record in 6.37 for the gold. The three other athletes who represented the Bahamas were Alonzo Russell, who got disqualified with the entire field in his heat of the men’s 400m on Friday - day two of the competition - while high jumpers Donald Thomas and Jamal Wilson were tied for sixth and ninth place respectively with three other competitors each, all at 2.20m or 7-feet, 2 1/2-inches when they competed on the first day of competition on Thursday. Shaunae Miller-Uibo didn’t participate in the championships after her request to compete in the pentathlon was denied by the IAAF, but her husband Maicel Uibo picked up the bronze for Estonia in the men’s heptathlon with a lifetime best of 6,265 points. Kevin Mayer of France was the gold medallist with a world-leading 6,348 and Daniel Warner of Canada won the silver with a national record of 6,343 points. Team Bahamas was managed by Sandra Laing with Ronald Cartwright as the head coach. “While Team Bahamas did not secure any medals, the performances of Devynne Charlton and Warren Fraser is to be commended,” Laing said. “Devynne got a national record of 7.89 in the 60m

DEVYNNE CHARLTON, during the IAAF World Indoor Championships on Saturday, lowered her national record in the 60m hurdles.

GRENADA’S BRALON TAPLIN, centre front, leads in a men’s 400m heat at the World Athletics Indoor Championships in Birmingham, Britain, on Friday. Bahamas’ Alonzo Russell can be seen.

By BRENT STUBBS Senior Sports Reporter bstubbs@tribunemedia.net KERRIE Cartwright was looking for better results as she started a tour in Heraklion, Greece, at the 12th Lyttos Beach International Tennis Federation’s (ITF) Circuit

THE Bahamas Swimming Federation has released the names of a 36-member team that will head to Kingston, Jamaica at the end of the month to defend the title at the 2018 CARIFTA Games. Three teams were also named for the water polo competition that will be held two weeks before. The Bahamas regained the title last year when the games was held here at the Betty Kelly Kenning Swim Complex after relinquishing it two years ago to Martinique. Prior to that, the Bahamas held the title for two consecutive years. With the team selected this year with all qualifiers, federation president Algernon Cargill said he’s confident that the Bahamas will prevail as champions again when the games take place March 31 to April 4. “It’s a very strong team that will be led by Lilly Higgs and Izaak Bastian. They are the two outstanding swimmers on the team,” Cargill said. “Lilly, obviously, had a great meet at CARIFTA last year and she’s heading to the University of North Carolina next year. “The strongest categories will be the senior boys and girls (15-17). They are very strong categories. We are very excited about the team because they are all qualifiers. So we are looking forward to going to Jamaica and successfully defending our title.”

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KNIGHTS WIN SENIOR TRACK AND FIELD TITLE SHOWN (l-r) are Bahamas’ Warren Fraser, United States’ Ronnie Baker and Slovakia’s Jan Volko compete during a men’s 60 metre heat Saturday at the World Athletics Indoor Championships in Birmingham, Britain. (AP Photos/Alastair Grant) hurdles and advancing to the final and Warren advancing to the semi-final in season’s best of 6.66. “It is unfortunate with the disqualification of

Alonzo Russell and his whole heat in the 400m. We were looking for both Donald Thomas and Jamal Wilson to be on the medal podium, but it was not to

be at these games. The team members all have bright futures ahead of them and I am looking for great things from them in the future.”

‘Overall, I thought the tournament was really good’

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FEDERATION NAMES 36MEMBER CARIFTA SWIM TEAM By BRENT STUBBS Senior Sports Reporter bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

J

ust as she started on Friday at the Barclaycard Arena in Birmingham, Great Britain, Devynne Charlton finished the IAAF World Indoor Championships on Saturday running the final of the women’s 60 metres hurdles in lane eight. After opening the fourday championships with a season’s best of 7.95 to win her heat out of lane eight and turned in the third fastest time in the preliminaries, Charlton came back in the semi-final in lane four where she lowered her national record to 7.89 for second in her heat for the seventh spot going into the final. She closed out the championships for the Bahamas’ five-member team in lane eight where she faded to eighth place in 8.18. “I was very pleased with myself to come to this meet and get a season’s best first round and then get national record and a personal best in the next round,” said Charlton after she broke her previous mark of 7.93 at the NCAA Division 1 Championships in College Station on March 11, 2017. “That was really special for me.” As for the final, Charlton said she felt she had a pretty good start, but she took a little too long in her drive phase and that cost her big time. “I clipped the first hurdle and ended up hitting the second and third hurdles with my knee and that kind of took me out of it,” she explained. “I thought if it wasn’t for the initial mistakes, it would have been a pretty good race and the final results would have been interesting. But it just didn’t work out that way.” Now that the championships are over and done with, Charlton has headed back to Purdue University where she will prepare for her final outdoor season for the Boilermakers track team, which means that she will skip the trip to the Commonwealth Games in the Gold Coast, Australia, April 4-15. “I’m going to go back to the drawing board and get ready for outdoors,” said Charlton, who had her parents Dave and Laura Charlton cheering for her. “Unfortunately, I won’t be able to attend the Commonwealth Games because I would end up missing

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over the weekend, but she admitted that she will take it. The island nation’s only Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) ranked player participated in the first of three consecutive tournaments in Greece where she made it to the quarter-finals in singles, losing a hard fought 4-6, 6-0, 6-1 decision to No.4 seed Anastasia Detiuc of the Czech Republic. Detiuc eventually lost in the final to top seed Raluca Georgiana Serban of Romania 6-3, 5-7, 6-2. Serban also beat Cartwright’s American doubles partner Kariann Pierre-Louis 4-6, 6-1, 6-4 in their quarter-final match. Cartwright and Pierre-Louis also reached the quarter-final in doubles where they were ousted 7-6 (4), 2-6 (11-9) by Michaela Boev of Belgium and Serban. Boev and Serban went on to win the title with a 6-1, 2-6 (10-7) decision over Gabriela Ana Maria Davidescu and Alexandra

Maria Staiculescu of game. It was more a Romania. battle of who can get “Overall, I thought lucky in certain situthe tournament was ations. It was more really good,” Cartof a battle like that wright told The to see who could get Tribune. “It was a through that day. good start off to my “But overall, it was time being here in pretty good. I’m very Greece for the next glad of how I did. two weeks. I’m really looking “I got to the main forward to the next CARTWRIGHT draw for the next tournament this week tournament here, so and the next one that that is really great. Hopefully I can will follow right after that. My improve on what I did in this last expectations is just to go out there tournament.” and play my best, to try my best, In all of her matches played in to play my game and to enjoy it as the tournament last week, Cart- much as I can and to have fun.” wright said she fought extremely If she can win, Cartwright said hard and left it all on the court. it will definitely be a feather in her “In my last match that I played, cap. Cartwright, 25, will be back at it was pretty windy that day and the same venue to play her next I’m surprised that we still had to tournament this week. play,” she recalled. “It was at least She is currently ranked at 1,002 25-35 miles per hour winds, so it in singles and 828 in doubles in the was pretty tough to even play your WTA.

THE CR Walker Knights pulled off another Government Secondary Schools Track and Field Championships title at the Thomas A Robinson National Stadium on Friday. The Knights, who joined the AF Adderley Fighting Tigers, who won the junior divisional crown on Thursday, collected a total of 628.50 points to defeat their nearest rivals, the CI Gibson Rattlers, who got second with 574.50. The CV Bethel Stingrays got third with 463.17 points. The remaining teams in order were the RM Bailey Pacers with 305, CC Sweeting Cobras with 234, Doris Johnson Mystic Marlins with 202, Government High Magic with 183.50 and the Anatol Rodgers Timberwolves with 162.50. GSSSA president Varel Davis said the meet went very well and with both the junior and senior high schools coming together to compete at the same time, it provided a lot more excitement. “We were able to host all 15 school flags at the same time and for the first time, we put the awards on the winners’ necks right after their races,” Davis said. “Along with putting the gold medals on the winners, we also played their school songs just like they do at the Olympics. “I think the kids enjoyed that. They stood on the

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