By Melton Williams,
Staff Reporter
THE contenders for the girls' title at the 2001 VMBS Boys and Girls championships are beginning to separate themselves from the pretenders as the third day of another 'Super Champs' ended at the National Stadium last night.
On a day when St. Jago's 'star girl' Melanie Walker smashed the 400 metres open hurdles record in the final, Holmwood's Aneisha McLaughlin accounted for the Class 3 200m record, Samantha Henry of Queen's High broke the Class 4 200m and Wolmers' Deandra Coley broke the Class 4 long jump record, defending champions Vere Technical have tightened their hold on the title after 10 finals.
The Clarendon-based school are totally in command on 90 1/2 points and barring any mishaps, the two other contenders vying for title honours, 1999 champions St. Jago and Holmwood, are left to fight for second spot.
St. Jago, who improved to second position yesterday, are well behind on 46 1/2 points and Holmwood are third on 30 points. The top 10 is completed by St. Andrew High (23 1/2), Immaculate (20 1/2), Wolmers (20), St. Elizabeth (18), Manchester (18), Mannings (16), Alpha (11) and Williams Knibb (11).
As expected, Walker set a new mark in the 400m open hurdles with an impressive 56.55 seconds, smashing her own record of 58.13 set on Wednesday in the heats.
Vere Technical's Patricia Hall, who held the record coming into the championships, took silver in 58.41.
McLaughlin, the hot favourite to win the Class 3 200m and 400m gold medals, easily won heat three of the 200m semi-final in a record time of 23.45. The previous record of 23.64 was held by Edwin Allen's Lisa Sharpe since 1999.
Henry stopped the clock at 24.62 to erase Immaculate's Diane Dietrich 1999 Class 4 200m record of 24.70.
And Coleman with a leap of 5.32m smashed Mannings' Stacy Ann Clayton 1994 previous mark of 5.21m. Immaculate's Deandra Doley also beat Clayton's mark with 5.24m.
Of the five completed finals last night, Vere Technical took gold through Keshelia Reid, who won the shot put open with a throw of 10.83m and Kemisha Nelson, who won the Class 1 high jump with a leap of 1.65m ahead of teammate Calata Bennett.
St. Jago's Monefa Whyte took the Class 3 discus with a throw of 30.51m and Deaydron Coleman of Wolmers won the Class 3 long jump with a leap of 5.32m.
Vere are expected to score heavily in the 200 metres. Star athlete Veronica Campbell had the fastest qualifying time of 23.95 going into tomorrow's Class 1 finals. Vere will also be represented by Shereefa Lloyd who had the second fastest time. St. Jago and Holmwood have only one qualifier.
In Class 2 Vere have the fastest qualifier in Simone Facey with a time of 23.91, another final where they had two qualifiers.
Vere are also strongly represented in Class 4 with Julia Smith and Sharneter Stewart, but Henry of Queen's looks hard to beat.
The battle for championships honours is expected to reach fever pitch on today's penultimate day with 10 other finals, including the 100 metres down to be contested.
JC back in relays
DEFENDING champions Jamaica College will run in all three sprint relays on tomorrow's final day of the 2001 VMBS Boys and Girls Athletics Championships.
The Old Hoped Road-based JC were singing the blues after the disqualification of two relays on Wednesday night. The school was, however, reinstated in both the Class 1 and 2 relays following successful appeals. The Class 2 relay crossed the line first and the Class 1 second in the first round heats but were both disqualified for lane violations. They advanced to the final after the jury of appeal reviewed videos of both races and gave the all clear.
The Class 3 boys who were third in their heat advanced to the final with the sixth fastest time.
