Sixteen year old Jamaican prodigy Briana Williams captured the sprint double title at the IAAF World U20 Championships in Tampere, Finland to increase the country’s medal to 9 including 3 gold 4 silver and a bronze on the penultimate day
Williams sped to a lifetime best and championship record 22.90 seconds as she destroyed the field, winning more than half a second ahead of American Lauren Rain Williams, who clocked 23.09. The 0.59 winning margin was the second biggest ever.
Winning sees Williams emulating Veronica Campbell-Brown as the only Jamaican sprint double champion at the Under 20 Championships.
“I was a bit tired and nervous before the race,” said Williams, who arrived in Tampere with a 23.11 lifetime best, set when winning her age group at the Carifta Games in early April. Now, her ambitions are clearly expanding.
“In the future, I want to be the youngest Olympic medalist in Tokyo 2020, but there are a lot of chances to succeed before then as well.”
Sprint double champion Briana Williams
Jamaica also won silver on the day in the men’s 4x100m relay behind the United States who took the relay title for the sixth successive time – to claim their first gold medal in Tampere after missing out on individual titles in the 100m and 200m.
Four teams were still in title contention at the final changeover but Micah Williams maintained the United States’ slender lead, holding off Jamaica’s Michael Stephens in the process with notable times for both teams.
Led off by double bronze medallist Eric Harrison, the United States set a world U20 leading mark of 38.88 with Jamaica, whose team also included world U20 400m silver medallist Christopher Taylor on the second leg, lowering the national U20 record to 38.96.
Tragedy, meanwhile, for the second straight day struck a Jamaican relay team as the male 4x400m team were disqualified after placing second in their heat behind Great Britain.
The quartet of Malik Smith, DeShawn Morris, Anthony Carpenter and Shemar Chambers seemed to have booked an automatic spot in the final after they had clocked 3:07.65 seconds.
However they were disqualified for a lane violation. The appeal by the Jamaican management was also thrown through the window. Tough luck for the Jamaicans who were the clear favorites to win the gold medal in the event and even challenge the world record.
No such problems for the female team who made progress after winning heat one. The team of Jonielle Joseph, Stacy-Ann Williams, Chrisani May and Calisha Taylor ran 3:34.23 seconds in taking heat one ahead of Italy and Spain.
Reigning world youth champion Britany Anderson meanwhile eased into the final of the women’s 100m hurdles after winning her semifinal heat in a lifetime best 13.10 seconds.
Leonardo Ledgister and Malik James-King finished 4th and 5th in the men’s 400m hurdles final. Ledgister once again produced a lifetime best as he ran 49.93s while James-King clocked 50.25 seconds as South Africa’s Sokwakhana Sazinii won in 49.42 seconds.
Earlier Kai Chang led all qualifiers from his group to the final of the men’s discuss with a throw of 59.27m.