After blasting the junior national record in the heats, the boys 4x400 meters (m) relay team of Henri Delauze, Janeko Cartwright, Steven Gardiner and Kinard Rolle, in that order, had to settle for sixth in the final, ending an IAAF World Junior Championships meet in which The Bahamas won no medals for the first time since 2006.
The country still finished tied for 55th overall, with South Africa, among 175 member federations of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF). The United States of America (USA) won the biennial meet on its home soil, with 206 points, Kenya was second with 124 points, and Germany rounded out the top three nations with 87 points. Cuba was the top Caribbean country, finishing ninth with 57 points. The Bahamas finished with just three points courtesy of the sixth place finish by the boys' 4x400m relay team.
In the medal strandings, the U.S. once again came out on top, winning 21 total medals - 11 gold, five silver and five bronze. Kenya was second with four, five and seven for 16 total medals; Ethiopia finished third in the medal standings with six total medals - three gold and three silver.
The boys' 4x400m, one of the marquee events for The Bahamas over the years, brought the curtain down on the six-day meet in Eugene, Oregon, marking the first time the meet was held in the United States.
The Bahamas' quartet of Delauze, Cartwright, Gardiner and Rolle ran 3:07.03 in the heats to qualify for the final with the fourth fastest time, but could only muster a time of 3:08.08 in the final for sixth place. The former junior national record was 3:08.56, ran by the team of Demetrius Pinder, Juan Lewis, Carlyle Thompson and Jameson Strachan, at the 2006 CARIFTA Games.
As for the race yesterday, after a strong opening leg by Delauze and a good curve by Cartwright, The Bahamas actually held the lead on the back stretch of the second leg. However, Cartwright appeared to get boxed in coming off the second curve, stumbled, and never recovered. He faded on the home stretch, and The Bahamas was taken out of contention. Gardiner tried to bring the team back, but the top three of the U.S., Jamaica and Japan were already too far ahead. He and Rolle failed to make up any ground, and The Bahamas faded to sixth.
Individually over the weekend, Devynne Charlton, a CARIFTA Games icon for The Bahamas, ran the best she's ever ran in the short hurdles. Charlton appears to be back to top form, but her stunning time of 13.36 seconds won't go down as a junior national record because of a strong tailwind. She finished fourth in her 100m hurdles semi-final heat behind a 3.1mps (meters per second) tailwind. More importantly, she just missed qualifying for the final at the world's top meet for junior track and field athletes. Charlton was just a hundredth of a second off the final qualifying spot, finishing ninth overall. French athlete Elisa Girard-Mondoloni secured the final qualifying spot, in 13.35 seconds.
Be that as it may, Charlton was still the highest individual finisher for The Bahamas at this year's world juniors.
In the heats on Friday, Charlton matched her personal best time of 13.56 seconds, tying for the eighth fastest heading into the semis. She took it up a notch further in the semis, and just barely becoming the only Bahamian at the world juniors this year to qualify for an individual event final. The junior national record in the event is 13.51 seconds, done by Krystal Bodie at the Scotiabank Olympic Trials six years ago. With the proper wind conditions on Saturday, Charlton could have very well erased that record.
American Kendell Williams went on to won the gold medal in the event on Sunday, blazing to a new championships record time of 12.89 seconds in the final. It was a 1-2 American sweep in the event, as Dior Hall took the silver, in a personal best time of 12.92 seconds, and Nadine Visser, of The Netherlands, was third in a national junior record of 12.99 seconds.
The girls 4x100m relay team qualified for the final, but experienced problems in the final, particularly on the exchange between the third and anchor legs. The Bahamas' team of Carmiesha Cox, Jenae Ambrose, Brianne Bethel and Keianna Albury, in that order, ran 45.22 seconds to qualify for the final with the seventh fastest. With Charlton inserted into the line-up for Ambrose in the final, the team crossed the finish line in seventh place, in 45.83 seconds, but was disqualified for passing the baton outside of the exchange zone. The mishap appeared to occur on the third and fourth legs, with Bethel handing off to Albury. The Bahamas has the fastest reaction time in the field, with Charlton getting off to a blazing start. However, the quartet just didn't have the foot speed of the others teams in the race.
The USA won the gold medal, in a world junior-leading time of 43.46 seconds, Jamaica was second, in 43.97 seconds, and Germany took the bronze, in 44.65 seconds. The Bahamas' national junior record in the event is 33.42 seconds, done by the team of V'Alonee Robinson, Sheniqua Ferguson, Tia Tolle and Nivea Smith at the World Junior Championships in 2008 in Bydgoszcz, Poland.
The boys 4x100m relay team didn't make it out of the first round. The team of Keanu Pennerman, Cliff Resias, Deedro Clarke and Javan Martin, in that order, experienced some problems on the exchange from Pennerman to Resias which hampered their progress. They still went on to finish third in their heat, in 40.45 seconds, just missing out on one of the automatic qualifying spots for the final. Jamaica won that heat in 39.86 seconds, Trinidad & Tobago finished second in 40.32 seconds, and The Bahamas completed the Caribbean sweep in that heat with their third place finish. Only the top two teams and the next two fastest times moved on to the final though. The Bahamas ended up ninth overall, just on the outside looking in.
The Bahamas finished with just two finalists at the prestigious junior international meet - the girls 4x100m relay team that was disqualified and the junior record setting boys 4x400m relay team that finished as the sixth best in the world.

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