Jamaican dominance on final day of 2017 Penn Relays

By Jeremain Brown, Reporting from Philadelphia

A world high school relay record from Calabar High highlighted a stunning final day for Jamaican athletes as the 123rd Penn Relays culminated on Saturday at the Franklyn Field Stadium at the University of Pennsylvania in the United States.  

Calabar were the toast of the day as they took the double in the high school boys section, blazing to a meet as well as Jamaican and world high school record of 39 seconds flat to win the 4x100m Championship of America relay.

They broke the previous Penn Relay record of 39.63 seconds and the previous high school world record of 39.08 set by another Calabar team at ‘Boys Champs 2015’. Kingston College was second with 39.74 with Cornwall 4th and Munro 6th.

Calabar would return to clock another meet record to win the 4x400m Championship of America event in 3 minutes, 08.59 seconds.

Edwin Allen High with 3 minutes, 10.09 seconds, took second while Kingston College placed third in 3minutes, 11.18 seconds.      

St Elizabeth Technical were also dominant in winning the 4x800 meters Championship of America race in 7minutes, 33.27seconds ahead of St Jago, Calabar and Jamaica College. Papine High were also record breakers, clocking 40.83 to win the boys’ consolation 4x100m final. 

GC Foster College was the fastest Jamaican sprint relay team on the day, speeding to 38.65 seconds to win the college men's event while UWI Mona won the consolation final in 39.96 seconds.

Jamaica also won three of the six USA vs The World relay events including the women's sprint relay with double Olympic champion Elaine Thompson closing a 5 metre deficit on anchor, clocking 42.25 seconds to win. The men's and women's 4x400 relay teams were also victorious. There were two Jamaican victories in the individual events to round off a resounding day for the country's athletes.

UTech's Ronald Levy continues his solid start to the season, clocking 13.33 seconds to win the college men's 110 metres hurdles and Munro College's Tevin Dunn also won the boys triple jump with 15.17 meters ahead of JC's Andre Douglas who was second with 15.13 meters.