Jamaican 15-year-old star Christopher Taylor clocks 46.64secs in 400m, breaks Bolt’s 13-y-o Carifta Game Record ...Meanwhile, Jamaican Akeem Bloomfied won the Under-20 boys’ 400m in a modest 45.85 seconds

Jamaican star Christopher Taylor (right) approaches the
 finish line ahead to win the Under-18 400m in a new record
of 46.64 seconds inside the Kim Collins Stadium in Basseterre,
St Kitts, yesterday. (PHOTO: COLLIN REID COURTESY
OF SUPREME VENTURES AND COURTS)

Jamaica’s Christopher Taylor was one of the outstanding athletes on yesterday’s second day of the 44th Carifta Games at the Silver Jubilee Stadium — to be renamed the Kim Collins — Stadium in Basseterre, St Kitts, as he broke Usain Bolt’s 13-year-old record in the Under-18 boys’ 400m.

The 15-year-old Taylor, who won the Class Two event at the ISSA/GraceKennedy Boys’ and Girls’ Championships last weekend, ran 46.64 seconds to erase Bolt’s 47.33 seconds set in 2002 in Nassau, The Bahamas.

Jacob St Clair of Trinidad and Tobago was also under the old mark with 46.73 seconds to take silver, while Devaughn Ellington of Jamaica was third with a personal best 47.43 seconds.

Ellington just edged The Bahamas’s Jamal Walton, last year’s bronze medallist who was also clocked in at 47.43 seconds.    

Jamaica won three of the four 400m gold medals and both of the girls 100m titles to finish the day with a preliminary count of 29 medals comprising 14 gold, seven silver and eight bronze.

The Bahamas had won 13 medals with four gold, two silver and seven bronze, while Barbados won two gold in their seven-medal haul so far.

A number of results of field events had not been posted at press time last night and the medal count could swell even further.

Shellece Clarke (centre) of Jamaica eases after crossing
 the finish line to win the Under-18 100m final ahead of Tristan
Evelyn (left) of Barbados and Brianne Bethel
 (right) of The Bahamas.
(PHOTOS: COLLIN REID COURTESY OF
 SUPREME VENTURES AND COURTS)

Meanwhile, Akeem Bloomfied won the Under-20 boys’ 400m in a modest 45.85 seconds, by his standards, getting to the line ahead Antigua and Barbuda’s Rai Benjamin in 46.19 seconds and The Bahamas’s Henri Deluze in 46.81 seconds.

Shaquania Dorsett of The Bahamas won the Under-20 girls’ 400m in 53.40 seconds, getting home ahead of the Jamaican pair of Dawnalee Loney in 53.58 seconds and Tiffany James in 53.71 seconds.

Junelle Bromfield was dominant in the Under-18 girls’ final, running away to win in 53.48 seconds to finish ahead of teammate Shanique Walker in 54.23 seconds, and Grenada’s Meleni Rodney in 54.56 seconds.

Shellece Clarke and Natalliah Whyte won the Under-18 and Under-20 girls’ 100m titles, while the boys had to settle for lesser medals in the stellar event of the day.

Clarke ran 11.50 seconds (1.3m/s) to win her first gold with Barbados’s Tristan Evelyn second in 11.54 seconds and Brianne Bethel of The Bahamas taking the bronze in 11.63 seconds.

Whyte, who won the Under-18 last year, stepped up to the Under-20 without missing a beat and clocked 11.56 seconds (0.5m/s) to hold off Kianna Albury of The Bahamas in 11.64 seconds and her teammate Jenae Ambrose in 11.74 seconds. more