News06 Jul 2003


Francique and Goldbourne shine in CAC Games

FacebookTwitterEmail

Alleyne Francique at the start of the 2003 CAC men's 400m final (© Michael Bascombe)

The hosts broke their Central American and Caribbean Senior Track and Field Championship gold medal drought in fine style on Saturday as the XIX Games continued in St. George’s, Grenada.

Neisha Bernard-Thomas won the women’s 800m, Hazelann Regis the women’s 400m, and Alleyne Francique the men’s 400m before an ecstatic capacity crowd.

Neisha won in 2:04:12, followed home by Kenia Sinclair (2:04:50) of Jamaica. Hazelann, Neisha’s teammate at Louisiana State University, ran 51.56 seconds to beat Jamaica's Michelle Berger (52.19) into second place. Alleyne, a former LSU student athlete and Grenada’s only professional athlete, clocked 45.27 seconds to beat Jamaica’s Chris Brown (45.42) and Ato Modibo (45.81) of Trinidad & Tobago. World Champion Avard Moncour opted out of the individual 400m, but he will join the Bahamas team for the mile relay on Sunday.

Jamaica's Alison Beckford won the 400m hurdles in a meet record time of 55.12 seconds. Another meet record fell in the women's 4x100m relay, as the Bahamas (Tamicka Clarke, Debbie Ferguson, Christine Amertil and Shandria Brown) ran in 43.06 seconds, the second fastest time this year. The Jamaican
team was second and Cuba third, and they all broke the old mark of 43.83 seconds set two years ago by the Jamaicans.

Trinidad and Tobago's men’s team, which included World Junior Champion Darrel Brown and Marc Burns also set a new record of 39.05 seconds, clipping .02 seconds off the old mark set
by Cuba in 1995.

In the field, Jamaica’s Elva Goldbourne leapt to the second-best distance in the world this year for the women’s long jump, but with a trailing wind of 2.6m/s, her effort of 6.96m will not go down as a CAC record. On her second trial, however, the 23-year-old cleared 6.95m, which will in fact enter the record books.

Yojer Medina, a 30-year-old Venezuelan, came close to breaking
a 21-year-old record when he pushed the shot 19.17m; he was fewer than 20cm off the mark.

Pages related to this article
Disciplines
Loading...