Members of the St. Jago High 4x100m team which clocked a historic 39.80 seconds to win the Class One event at the GraceKennedy/ISSA Boys and Girls Championships last Saturday. They are the first school to run under 40 seconds at the prestigious meet. From left: Yohan Blake, Nickel Ashmeade, Rykert Hylton and Andre Walsh.

Anthony Foster, Freelance Writer

THE PERFORMANCE of St. Jago's sprint relay team at the ISSA/GraceKennedy Boys & Girls Athletics Championships still has many fans in a state of shock.

The team, which had World Junior 100m bronze medallist Yohan Blake on anchor, Ricker Hylton, Andre Walsh and Nickel Ashmeade, ran a spectacular 39.80 seconds to become the first schoolboy team to run sub-40 seconds.

They erased the previous mark of 40.37 set by Remaldo Rose's Camperdown team last year.

St. Jago's coach, Danny Hawthorne, was probably the only person at the National Stadium on Saturday night believing such a performance was possible.

"I was expecting it," Hawthorne said. "I knew we were going to break the record."

Next up for St. Jago will be Penn Relays and, according to Hawthorne, the team wants to break the national junior record of 39.15 seconds, which was set by Winston Hutton, Orion Nicely, Yhann Plummer and Usain Bolt in 2002.

Two national junior records were broken at champs. Kingston College's (KC) Keiron Stewart ran 13.53 seconds to beat the national junior and champs record in the 110m hurdles while Holmwood's Taneisha Blair threw 47.85m for a new javelin record. Both broke their own marks.

Blake ran an impressive 10.21 to break the Class One boys' 100m four-year-old record of 10.24, previously held by former St. George's College athlete Tesfa Latty.

Blake defeated Camperdown High's Rose (10.43) in the process. Blake also ran 20.62 seconds to win the 200m.

Meanwhile, Schillonie Calvert and her Holmwood teammate, Anastasia Le-Roy, a finalist at last year's World Juniors, won the 100m in 11.38 and 200m in 23.12 respectively.

Ramone McKenzie of champions Calabar, who won the 200m (20.89) and 400m (47.24), and Manchester High's Shawna-Gaye Tracey in the 400m hurdles (57.90) and 400m (53.33) were also impressive in Class Two.

Danielle Jeffrey of Immaculate won the Class Two 100m in 11.64 and the 200m in 23.65 while Antonique Campbell of Herbert Morrison took the Class Three (Under-16) girls' 200m in 24.14 and the 100m (11.89).