The opening day of the 52nd CARIFTA Games at the Hasely Crawford Stadium in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, ended with three medals for Saint Lucia, including historic gold. The 21-member team was in action in 10 events, making three track finals, and earning fourth-place finishes in two of their four field events.
Jady Emmanuel was the star of the day. Her run in the Under-17 girls’ 100m earned her the first gold medal ever for Saint Lucia in any sprint event. She stopped the clock in 11.50 seconds with a trailing wind of 0.2 metres per second, beating Jamaica’s Adora Campbell (11.58) in the process. It was not only a personal best mark for the Laborie native and Choiseul Secondary School student, but a new Under-18 national record for Saint Lucia, supplanting Julien Alfred’s run of 11.53 from 2017.
Naya Jules got silver in the girls’ pole vault. It took a new meet record of 3.10m to beat the Garden State College freshman, the two-time defending champions.
She, too, set a new personal record, and a new national record, clearing 3.00m for second place. Jules, who is from Babonneau, had been in bronze medal position for much of the Under-20 javelin throw, but was overtaken in the next-to-last round.
Saint Lucia’s first medal went to Destinee Cenac, a 15-year-old student of St Joseph’s Convent, in the Under-17 girls’ high jump. Cenac’s Carifta Games debut represented just the fourth time she had ever competed in her event. She cleared a new personal-best 1.68m for bronze.
Cenac declared that her goal coming in had been to get over 1.65m, but having done so at the first attempt, she got over 1.68m on the first try as well, finishing behind Jamaica’s Sackoya Palmer and Barbados’ Shania Mottley.
Although he came in with the second-fastest time from the preliminaries, Ricardo Mann did not finish the Under-17 boys’ 100m. He had complained of a sore hamstring after running 10.74 in the heats. Gabrielle Facey ran 57.54 to qualify for the Under-17 girls’ 4000m, where she finished seventh. Denzel Phillips threw 45.37m for fourth in the Under-20 boys’ discus throw.
Joaqwan Alexander ran 48.62 to finish 13th overall in the Under-20 boys’ 400m. Terrick Plummer and Isabella Emilienne did not advance from the preliminaries of the Under-17 boys’ 100m and girls’ 400m, respectively.
Saint Lucia is fifth on the medal table after the opening day.
