By Anthony Foster, Freelance WriterTHE HEAD coach of Jamaica's team to the 10th Coca-Cola/IAAF World Junior Championships (WJC) in Grosseto, Italy, Maurice Wilson, has expressed great satisfaction with his team's performance.
The Jamaicans, without 2002 World Junior Champion Usain Bolt and 100m silver medallist Simone Facey, ended the championships with nine medals, one more than their previous best overseas haul of eight in Chile in 2000.
Given the circumstances, Wilson said the athletes performed above expectations.
"The performances were of a very, very high level," Wilson said yesterday.
"We are just happy that the team performed so well because a lot of people did not give us any chance because we were without Bolt and Facey, two of our top sprinters. In my estimation if they were there, we could easily have garnered three to four gold medals."
According to Wilson, the performance in Italy was most heartening.
"When you looked at what happened, four of the five hurdlers had their personal best times. The 4x400m (females) ran the fastest time in world junior history, they were defeated by a world junior record (United States) and a national junior record by Russia. The 4x100m (males), had the second fastest time in world junior history; the 4x100m females had the second fastest time, beaten (by the U.S.) in a world junior record."
PERSONAL BEST TIMES
Monique Morgan and Keisha Brown (100m hurdles), Patrick Lee (110m hurdles) and Sherene Pinnock (400m hurdles) were the athletes to record personal best times.
Wilson continued: "Kayann Thompson was the first Jamaican and Caribbean medallist in the 800m; Anneisha McLaughlin won the most medals ever in the history of world juniors six medals in total. So overall I think it was a great performance."
Wilson also gave credit to the courageous run by Kimberley Smith in the 4x100m. Smith pulled up 40 metres from the line but fought on for Jamaica to secure a spot in the final. These top-class performances, Wilson said, could not have been achieved without the great contribution of the management team, although he identified Dr. Paul Auden as "the person I though injected a lot of life into the team by working all through the nights to get everybody ready".
Three other outstanding performances came from 400m silver medallist Sonita Sutherland, 100m bronze medallist Remaldo Rose and 800m bronze medallist Kayann Thompson, said Wilson.
"Sutherland had eating problems, she was vomiting a lot, she also had the 'flu, she basically scraped through the semi-finals and for her to come and run 52.41 for a silver medal out of lane one showed the heart and courage of this young lady.
"Rose is an exceptional sprinter, I have not seen another junior sprinter of his calibre. I think his coach, Jermaine Shand, has being doing an excellent job with him.
"Thompson went into the final with the sixth fastest time but excellent work by (coach) Michael Dyke in terms of race strategy and her courage got her a medal," Wilson said.
