Home  Sports Upset win for Lee at World Juniors
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Upset win for Lee at World Juniors |
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Friday, 11 July 2008 |
BYDGOSZCZ, Poland– Jamaican Dexter Lee stunned more fancied rivals to win the men’s 100 meters on Wednesday evening, opening the Caribbean’s gold medal account at the 12th IAAF World Junior Championship.
Lee’s more favored teammate Yohan Blake labored into fourth place to surprisingly miss a medal as Lee grabbed gold in 10.42 seconds.
The South African Wilhelm van der Vyver got silver in 10.42, and American Terrell Wilks, the quickest going into the final, was third in 10.45.
Sheniqua Ferguson, of the Bahamas, claimed another sprint medal for the Caribbean when she got bronze in the women’s 100 meters.
Lee, a World Youth (Under-18) champion in Ostrava last year and runner-up to Blake at the CARIFTA Games in St Kitts in March, ran a superb race to edge van der Vyver by 0.02 seconds.
Wilks had been the quickest here in the previous rounds with times of 10.28 and 10.37.
“It feels good to get one over on the Americans,” Lee told reporters.
“I knew I could win this race, I’m not too surprised,” he added.
Blake, Jamaica’s national junior record holder at 10.11 seconds, had to settle for fourth in 10.11 and Cayman’s Kemar Hyman was eighth in 10.79.
American Jeneba Tarmoh (11.37) won the women’s 100 ahead of Britain’s Ashlee Nelson (11.49) with Ferguson third in 11.52.
Meritzer Williams, of St Kitts and Nevis, placed seventh in 11.82.
Elsewhere on the program Wednesday, Jamaican Tarik Batchelor was 11th in the men’s long jump final at 7.02 meters as American Marquise Goodwin won gold at 7.74 meters.
In the men’s 400-metre semi-finals, Grenada’s Kirani James stepped closer to his medal dream with the fastest win in 46.55 seconds.
James, a World Youth silver medalist a year ago, was just a shade off his national record 46.53 seconds he ran in the first round on Tuesday.
His Grenadian teammate Rondell Bartholomew (47.60) was eliminated along with T&T’s Zwede Hewitt (47.36), and Bahamian Juan Lewis (48.30)
There were no CARICOM qualifiers in the women’s race as Jamaicans Latoya McDermott (54.18), Barbadian Mara Weekes (55.51), and the British Virgin Islands’ Chantel Malone (54.98), were eliminated and T&T’s Britanny St Louis was disqualified.
Barbadian Shane Brathwaite, who won World Youth Octathlon gold in Ostrava last year, is contesting the men's 400-metre hurdles and he advanced easily from the first round.
Contesting heat one of the preliminaries, Brathwaite clocked a national junior record 51.66 seconds for third place.
Trinidad and Tobago's Jehue Gordon was fourth in 52.30 to also advance and T&T secured another spot in the next round through Emanuel Mayers (52.29) in heat four along with Leslie Murray, who clocked a US Virgin Islands national junior record 52.64.
In the preliminaries of the women's 400 hurdles, Jamaican Nikita Tracey won heat four in 57.58 over reigning CARIFTA champion from Trinidad and Tobago's Janeil Bellille (58.40) to advance to the semi-finals, along with Jamaican Shana-Gaye Tracey (58.95).
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