THEY’RE THE COLOUR of Valentine’s but Red didn’t get much love at Blackmans yesterday.
Twin brothers Romario and Akeem Marshall led Maxwell (Purple) to a dramatic ousting of reigning champs Byer (Red) at the Grantley Adams Memorial School’s inter-house athletics championship at the school grounds.
Maxwell never trailed at any stage of the proceedings after starting the day with a 132-point cushion and maintaining that huge advantage by winning the last four relays to finish with 913 points.
Challenor (Blue) finished a distant second on 768 – still 151 points better than their closest rivals Byer, who placed third. Crawford (Green) were fourth with 593 points, while Johnson (Yellow) managed 513 to bring up the rear.
Purple’s domination didn’t even end at the points table either, with Maxwell accounting for five of the eight division champions on the day including victor ludorum Romario Marshall.
Contesting the Division 2 boys’ category, Marshall tallied a meet-high 65 points after winning the 200 metres (24.72 seconds), 400 metres (55.09), 800 metres (2:14.00) and 1500 metres (4:56.00), placing second in the 100 metres and discus and third in the long jump.
And Akeem was just as impressive while running in a division above his age group and still managing wins in the 200 metres (23.94), 400 metres (54.91), 800 metres (2:14.00) and long jump (5.50 metres). For good measure, Akeem had a silver medal showing in the 1500 metrs before getting pipped on the line by Vatali Wilkinson in the 100 metres.
The boys’ namesake Britney Marshall had a similarly dominant performance for Purple in the Division 4 girls’ category while posting 54 points, following victories in the 200 metres (31.09), 400 metres and 800 metres (3:13.00). Britney then went on to place second in the 100 metres, 1500 metres and long jump.
Her efforts couldn’t match those of Johnson’s Shanika Haynes who won the Division 1 girls’ crown and victrix ludorum title with record-breaking performances in the shot put (9.76) and javelin (35.06).
But that wasn’t all she won as Haynes added victories in the discus (24.38), long jump (4.24) and 100 metres (14.35) to put the cap on a 61-point effort.
Promising middle distance runner Pallu Arthur brought more prominence to Maxwell when he was crowned the Division 4 king, following wins in the 400 metres (1:10.35) and 800 metres (2:51.00) and a third-place showing in the 200 metres.
Brianna Browne then rounded out the list of age-group winners for Purple after taking honours in the Division 3 girls by finishing second in the discus and third in the long jump.
Byer were forced to settle for Rhea Inniss’ victorious efforts in the Division 2 category, where she won the 100 metres (14.25), 200 metres (29.06), 400m (1:12.23), shot put (7.09) and discus (21.27).
Crawford were given something to cheer about after Davionne Thorpe won the 400 metres and javelin to take the Division 3 boys’ title.