Ashby wins double gold at NJCAA championship

LEVELLAND, Texas: Trinidadian sprinter Fana Ashby and Jamaican hurdler Melaine Walker registered double wins at the USA’s National Junior College Athletics Association (NJCAA) track and field championship on Saturday.

On an afternoon of many wind-assisted efforts at the South Plains College, Ashby copped the sprint double in times of 11.06 seconds and 22.69, while Walker swept the 100 and 400-metre hurdles. Trinidad and Tobago’s 400-metre star Damion Barry also landed gold among a plethora of Caribbean wins at the meet. Ashby, the 1997 CARIFTA Games Under-17 sprint double champion in Barbados, won the 100 metres ahead of American LaShantea Moore (11.27) and Jamaican Nadine Palmer (11.49) with a following wind of 2.4 metres per second. Her 200-metre win was assisted by a 4.6 mps wind with Moore (22.81), Palmer (23.34) and Jamaican Patricia Hall (23.59) chasing her. Hall won the women’s 400 metres in 53.00, with Grenada’s JackieAnn Moraine (54.24) second.

Walker won the women’s 100 hurdles in 13.35 seconds with a 3.8 mps following wind, and she copped the 400 hurdles in 58.40 seconds. Two-time CARIFTA champion Barry ran 46.35 for a clear win in the men’s 400 metres and Sheridan Kirk gave TT another win when he topped the men’s 800 metres in one minute 48.95 seconds. Barry and Kirk helped Kansas City win the men’s 4x400-metre relay in 3:05.59 seconds while Ashby spurred a women’s 4x100-metre triumph for Kansas in 45.71 seconds. The outstanding Adeh Mwamba won the women’s 5,000 and 1,500 metres, plus the 800 in which Jamaican Kareen Gayle was second in 2:11.14. Gayle also helped meet-champions Barton County win the women’s 4x400 relay (3:40.32) and 4x800 metres in 9:09.05.

Grenada’s Keron Francis posted yet another Caribbean win when he won the men’s javelin at a personal best 70.20 metres. Francis was also a silver medallist in the men’s long jump at 7.45 metres, and the Spice Isle also  lifted medals through Morain (1:00.29) in the 400 hurdles, Alleyne Lett (13.98) in the 110-metre hurdles, Shane Charles, a personal best 51.79 in the 400 hurdles, and Patricia Sylvester (1.72 metres) in the high jump. Jamaican Steve Mullings (10.00) was runner-up in a wind-assisted (5.6 mps) men’s 100 metres, won by Erick Wilson in 9.93 seconds.