PORT
OF SPAIN - Team USA picked up another 19 medals as the men and women
won the 4x100-meter relays, Curtis Beach won the decathlon and Chalonda
Goodman won her second and third gold medals Saturday night at the 2009
Pan Am Junior Championships at Hasely Crawford Stadium in Port of
Spain, Trinidad.
Team USA dominated the sprint relays, winning
the men's and women's 4x100-meter relays. Jessica Davis (Los Angeles,
Calif.), Amber Purvis (Benicia, Calif.), Tasha Allen (Milwaukee, Wisc.)
and Chalonda Goodman (Newnan, Ga.) got the stick around the track in
44.09 to beat Jamaica (44.96) and Trinidad and Tobago (45.38). Keyth
Talley (Tuscaloosa, Ala.), D'Angelo Cherry (Jonesboro, Ga.), Trevante
Rhodes (Austin, Texas) and Marcus Rowland (Spartanburg, S.C.) set a
Championship record in winning the men's 4x100m relay in 39.06.
For
the fourth time in the history of these Championships, Team USA went
1-2 in the decathlon. Running a stunning 4:20.54 in the 1,500m to close
out the competition, Curtis Beach (Albuquerque, N.M.) won the decathlon
with 7,377 points. Gray Horn (Gainesville, Fla.) finished as the
runner-up with 6,982 points and had an individual win in the 110m
hurdles in 14.35.
Chalonda Goodman won her second individual
gold medal of these Championships in winning the women's 200m in 23.08.
Tasha Allen brought home the silver in 23.51. On the men's side, Keyth
Talley took second in 20.78 and claimed the silver medal.
Maya
Pressley (Coconut Creek, Fla.) and Krystle Schade (Sunrise, Fla.) won
gold and silver in the women's high jump, each clearing 1.76m/5-9.25.
Pressley got the win for having clean attempts through 1.76/5-9.25,
while Schade took second after one miss as the winning height. 2008
World Junior champion Marquise Goodwin (Garland, Texas) won the silver
medal in the men's long jump with a leap of 7.85m/25-9.25. Alex Madkins
(Oklahoma City, Okla.) was fifth with 7.46m/24-5.75.
Sarah
Andrews (The Woodlands, Texas) and Aisling Cuffie (New Windsor, N.Y.)
controlled the race in the women's 5,000m, running together in first
and second through most of the race. With 400m to go, Andrews started
pulling away from Cuffie and crossed the line in 16:42.38. Cuffie was
second in 16:47.45. Parker Stinson (Cedar Park, Texas) ran into a
third-place finish in the men's 10,000m, claiming the bronze medal in
31:48.35. Anthony Solis (Ontario, Calif.) finished fifth in 32:33.79.
Team
USA once again went 1-2 in the pole vault, this time on the men's side.
Two-time USA Junior champion Jack Whitt (Norman, Okla.) was the victor,
clearing 5.20m/17-0.75 and Mike Arnold (Salt Lake City, Utah) the
runner-up at 5.10m/16-8.75.
In the men's 3,000m steeplechase,
2009 USA Junior champion Sean Soderman (Charlotte, N.C.) moved into the
lead with five laps to go and fought hard to keep it, battling Canada's
Mattias Wolter the entire way. But with 300m to go, Wolter kicked into
a gear that Soderman just didn't have to win the race in 9:05.28 with
Soderman winning silver in 9:10.75. Syracuse's Joe Whelan (Hamburg,
N.Y.) slipped and got banged up at the first water barrier, but picked
himself back up and ran his own race to finish sixth in 9:24.53.
Team
USA picked up two medals in the women's discus throw as Anastasia
Jelmini (Bakersfield, Calif.) and Erin Pendleton (Elmore, Ohio) went
2-3. Jelmini won her second medal of the competition with a runner-up
toss of 54.91m/180-2 and Pendleton took bronze with 48.01m/157-6. On
her last throw of throw of the women's hammer competition, Elizabeth
Rohl (Chicago, Ill.) launched a toss of 54.24m/177-11 to claim the
bronze medal. Casey Kraychir (Desert Hot Springs, Calif.) finished in
fifth with a best mark of 52.62m/172-8.
Trevor Barron (Bethel
Park, Pa.), who just a few weeks ago took fourth in the boys 10,000m
race walk at the 2009 World Youth Championships, took fourth this
morning in the 10,000m race walk crossing the line in 42:50.51. In what
is becoming his signature style, Barron started out at the back of the
pack and continually worked his way to the front and for some time was
in third place. But coming down the final straight, Barron was passed
by the fast-moving Giovanni Torres who claimed bronze in 42:46.89.
Matthew Forgues (Boothbay Harbor, Maine) finished ninth in 48:42.58.
In
qualifying action at the track tonight, Chanelle Price (Knoxville,
Tenn.) won her heat in the women's 800m in 2:08.04 and Laura Roesler
(Fargo, N.D.) took third in her heat in 2:13.32 as each automatically
qualified for tomorrow's final. Joseph Abbott (1:52.30, Reno, Nev.) and
Dylan Ferris (1:53.64, San Francisco, Calif.) won their respective
heats in the men's 800. Dalilah Muhammad (Bayside, N.Y.) won heat 1 in
the women's 400m hurdles in 59.42 and Turquoise Thompson (San Diego,
Calif.) took second in heat 2 in 1:00.40. William Wynne (Gainesville,
Fla.) set a Pan Am Championship record in winning heat 1 in the men's
400m hurdles in 49.89 and Reggie Wyatt (Riverside, Calif.) won heat 2
in 50.68. The previous record of 50.03 was set by two-time Olympic gold
medalist Angelo Taylor in 1997.
At the conclusion of day one in
the heptathlon, Ryann Kraiss (Eagleville, Pa.) is in second place with
3,319 points and Rebecca Neville (Merrillville, Ind.) is in sixth with
2,923 points.
For more information on Team USA at the 2009 Pan Am Junior Championships, visit www.usatf.org. For results, visit www.cfpitiming.com.
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