Jamaica's Veronica Campbell passes the finish line after the 100m women's final during the 8th World Junior Championship in Santiago yesterday. Campbell won the race in 11.12 seconds. Reuters
SPRINT sensation Veronica Campbell struck gold for Jamaica at the World Junior Track and Field Championships in Santiago, Chile yesterday when she captured the women's 100 metres crown in a championships and national junior record of 11.12 seconds.
Campbell, 18, also became the first junior to complete the double of World Youth and Junior champion after slicing four hundredths of a second off the former national junior standard of 11.16, which she set in the semi-finals of the Jamaican Olympic Trials.
She is the fourth Jamaican to win a gold at this level. The others were Gillian Russell (100m hurdles at the 1990 Champs in Bulgaria and 1992 in Seoul), Nikole Mitchell (100m at Seoul) and Michael McDonald (400m in Lisbon, Portugal in 1994).
Campbell, who was part of Jamaica's Olympic silver-medal winning sprint relay team in Sydney, won by a convincing margin over Germany's Katchi Habel (11.39) and Trinidad's Fana Ashby (11.47).
Jamaica's other finalist in the sprint was Nadine Palmer who finished a creditable fifth in 11.59.
In the male 100m final, Jamaica had less luck as the lone finalist, Michael Frater, finished fifth in a personal best of 10.46. The race was won by hot favourite Mark Francis-Lewis of Great Britain in a championship record of 10.12, easily dismissing Mubarak Salem Al-Yami of Saudi Arabia, second in 10.38.
Jamaica's other representative in the event, Dwight Shakespeare, was eliminated in the semi-finals after placing a disappointing seventh in 10.65.
In the women's long jump final Jamaica's Florida-based Nolle Graham performed below-par to end up eighth out of 12 competitors with a distance of 6.16m. Spain's Concepcion Montaner won the event with 6.47m ahead of Yangxia Zhou of China with 6.45m and Kumiko Ikeda of Japan (6.43m).
Jamaican athletes advanced to the finals in the women's 100m hurdles and in the 400m for both sexes yesterday.
In the men's 400, Olympian Brandon Simpson qualified for the final by placing second in semi-final two in a personal best time of 45.96 ahead of William Hernandez of Venezuela (46.77) and Richard Sharp of South Africa (46.83). The race was won by Saudi Arabia's Hamdan O. Al-Bishi in 45.69.
In the women's equivalent, Karen Gayle, normally an 800m runner, qualified by finishing second in heat two in 53.69, however Sheryl Morgan failed to advance after placing fifth in the first semi in 53.64.
Toni-Ann Doyley advanced to the finals of the women's 100m hurdles after winning her semi-final in a personal best time of 13.33.
Aldwyn Sappleton, Jamaica's lone competitor in the 800m, crashed out of the men's event by taking fifth place in the first semi-final in 1:52.46 - much slower than his 1:50.36 when placing third in the heats.
