Jamaica eye more medals on penultimate day
Joseph Salmon of Jamaica College reacts after winning the High School Boys’ Discus Championship at the Penn Relays at Franklin Field, Philadelphia, on Friday, April 24.
OREGON, USA — Jamaica will hope to add to their medal haul on the penultimate day of the World Athletics Under-20 Championships at Hayward Field on the campus of the University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon, today.
Jamaicans are set to compete in a number of finals, including the first-ever mixed 4x100m relay and the men’s high jump, where David Brown will carry the flag.
The semi-finals of the 400m hurdles will also be contested, along with the preliminaries of both the 4x100m and 4x400m relays and the first round of the men’s discus throw.
The Jamaican team of Justin Stewart, Natrece East, Detarje Morgan and Renecia Edwards ran 42.08 seconds for third in their heat and sixth overall in the preliminaries on Thursday.
Great Britain led the qualifying with a world record 41.60 seconds, ahead of Australia, which had earlier run 41.64.
With some consistency, Brown could challenge for a medal in the high jump final, as all the qualifiers managed 2.14m — well short of the 2.21m automatic qualifying height.
Shevaughn Thomas and Marria Crossfield will seek to advance to the women’s 400m hurdles final, while Jahvanie Tyrell and Robert Miller will compete in the men’s semi-finals.
Joseph Salmon, ranked second in the world, will hope to become the first Jamaican since Kai Chang in Finland in 2018 to win a medal in the men’s discus when he lines up in the preliminaries alongside Kamari Kennedy.
Salmon is coming off an outstanding season, winning at the NACAC Under-23 Championships after earlier victories at the ISSA Boys’ Championships, Carifta Games and Penn Relays.
Seventeen-year-old Kennedy, the NACAC Under-18 champion, will hope to at least get past the first round after failing to advance from the shot put on Wednesday.