On Monday, Jonel Lacey capped off her Carifta Games career in top form during the 44th junior championships at the Kim Collins Stadium in Bird Rock, St. Kitts and Nevis.
Ms. Lacey helped the Virgin Islands snatch the under-20 girls 4 x 400-metre relay silver medal from the Bahamas and Trinidad and Tobago. Also on the team was Taylor Hill, Tarika “Tinker Bell” Moses and Lakeisha “Mimi” Warner.
Ms. Lacey ended the competition with two silver medals and one bronze medal.
Ms. Lacey won an individual silver medal in the 400-metre intermediate hurdles on Sunday. She beat out the Bahamas and Trinidad and Tobago in 3:46.43 minutes.
It is the first time the VI has fielded an under-20 girls 4 x 400-metre relay team since participating at the Carifta Games in 1976.
The territory has now bagged 40 Carifta Games medal in its history.
Ms. Lacey, who missed the games last year, returned and made her debut in the 400-metre intermediate hurdles where she finished third for an individual bronze medal with a personal best of 1 minute and 1.26 seconds.
Ms. Lacey was followed by Lakeisha “Mimi” Warner, who won the 800-metre bronze medal in 2012 and 2013, in 1:01.65.’ It was only her second time over the barriers. She ran 1:04.71’ a week earlier in the event.
Ms. Lacey’s time is the fastest electronic time ever by a VI athlete and follows only Pat Archibald’s 60-second hand time from 1982 on the territory’s all-time list.
Trevia Gumbs won the VI’s first medal on Saturday in the shot put with a throw of 14.83 metres on her second attempt to break her own national record — marking the 11th successive week that a VI record has been established this season —a first in BVI Athletics Association history.
The final day began with Tynelle Gumbs in the under-20 girls javelin throw with a heave of 37.90 metres — the second best mark of her career — to finish sixth overall. She was seventh in the discus throw during that evening with a best effort of 38.86 metres.
Her twin sister Trevia finished fifth with a personal best toss of 40.18 metres, which was the first time she threw farther than 40 metres. She beat Tynelle for the second consecutive time this season, increasing her best mark from 38.74 in her last meet in Arizona.
On Monday, the competition did not start well for the VI as under-20 girls 100-metre hurdler Deya Erickson, who was in medal contention and clipped the fifth hurdle, lost her balance, stumbled into the next hurdle and did not finish the race.
Ms. Moses, a 2013 under-17 girls 400-metre silver medalist —ran a strong race in her first 800 metres at a championship level, but finished fourth in 2:14.80 minutes in her outdoor debut in the event, after running 2:12.46 minutes indoors.
Beyonce DeFreitas, the only 14-year-old to make the under-18 girls 200-metre final, was initially ruled ineligible to compete because of her age, a decision that affected several other teams, but was dropped during Friday’s technical meeting. She ran a personal best of 24.50 seconds to place fifth, with a +1.5 metres-per-second tailwind, running from lane seven. She lowered her best from 24.79 seconds in the prelims. Only eight other VI athletes have run faster. Because the ruling came late, she did not run in the 400-metres prelims on Friday.
In the under-20 girls 200 metres, Ms. Huggins had a sixth-place finish with a wind aided time of 23.92 seconds. Ms. Huggins came sixth in the 100 metres in 12.13 seconds behind Taylor Hill’s 11.86 seconds after a personal best of 11.83” in the semi-finals. Ms. Huggins advanced to the 200-metre final after finishing in 24.15 seconds in third place, behind the United States Virgin Islands’ Quashira McIntosh’s 24.04 seconds. It was the first time since 2011 that Ms. Huggins advanced to the 100-metre final after running 11.98 seconds.
Ms. Hill ran a personal best of 24.24 seconds in th event, but missed the final by one place.
Triple jumper Akeem Bradshaw, who was fifth in the long jump with a personal best leap of 7.26 metres, finished eighth in the under-20 boys triple jump after leaping 14.18 metres.
Kyron McMaster narrowly missed a 400-metre intermediate hurdles bronze medal by 0.15 seconds when he finished fourth in 51.92 seconds.
On Saturday, aided by a +2.7 metres-per-second wind, L’Tisha Fahie advanced to her first Carifta Games under-18 girls final when she ran 11.85 seconds to grab one of the two automatic spots in the second of three heats in the semifinal competition. Ms. Fahie then placed sixth in the 100-metre final matching the time in the semi-finals, but the wind was +1.3 mps — well below the legal limit of 2.0 — chopping her best from 12.01 seconds and jumping to eighth on the territory’s all-time list.
Arianna Hayde and Kala Penn competed in the under-18 girls long jump on Friday. Ms. Hayde finished seventh with a leap of 5.17 metres, while Ms. Penn was 10th after cutting the sand at 5.01 metres. Ms. Hayde also competed in the javelin throw and settled for a best effort of 37.80 metres on her opening throw and fouled the others to finish ninth. Ms. Penn’s best triple jump was 11.47 metres, which placed her in seventh overall.
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