The men’s 4x400 relay team with their silver medals.
By BRENT STUBBS
Senior Sports Reporter
bstubbs@tribunemedia.net
GOLD Coast, Australia: As the athletic competition at the XXI Commonwealth Games came to a close on Saturday night at the Carrara Stadium, the men's 4 x 400 metre relay team of Ojay Ferguson, Teray Smith, Stephen Newbold and Alonzo Russell provided one more reason for the Bahamas to celebrate.
The team produced a season's best time of three minutes and 01.92 seconds for the silver medal, trailing Botswana, anchored by 400m champion Isaac Makwala for the gold. Jamaica, anchored by Javon Francis, picked up the bronze.
When added to the gold won by Shaunae Miller-Uibo in the women's 200m and the silvers from Jamal Wilson and Jeffery Gibson in the men's high jump and 400m hurdles respectively, the Bahamas ended up 13th on the athletic medal chart behind Trinidad and Tobago and was sitting in 20th spot.
But the final day of competition didn't go as well as anticipated for the women's 4 x 100m relay. Just before the final, head coach Rupert Gardiner said they made the decision to withdraw the team after Miller-Uibo suffered what appears to be a "slight disc injury" after her games record breaking performance in the 200m on Thursday night.
Gardiner said they felt that the team, which remained with Anthonique Strachan, V'Alonee Robinson, Katrina Seymour and Tamara Myers would not have been "as competitive to challenge for a medal" so they didn't run. The event went to a straight final after only eight countries had registered for the heats the night before.
With the Bahamas' withdrawal, England raced to the gold in a national record time of 42.46 seconds with Jamaica getting the silver in 42.52 and Nigeria getting the bronze in 42.75.
Also on Saturday, Latario Collie placed 11th in final of the men's triple jump with a leap of 15.90 metres or 52-feet, 2-inches.
Over at the Currumbin Beachfront, Jay Major and Anthony Colebrook were among a field of 65 competitors but didn't finish the men's 168.3 kilometre road race. Australia's Steele von Hoff won the gold in 3:57.01, Jonathan Mould of Wales got the silver in 3:57.01 and Clint Hendricks of the Republic of South Africa was the bronze medalist in 3:57.01.
The closing ceremonies will bring the curtain down on the games on Sunday at 7:30 pm (Australian time).
Comments
ThisIsOurs 6 years ago
Woohoo!
sheeprunner12 6 years ago
These rag tag fellas carrying on the Golden Knights legacy ........ but what is going on at the junior level???? ....... We had no 400m male medalists in 2018 Carifta
ThisIsOurs 6 years ago
Stephen Newbold is not rag tag! I just asked about him at the Carifta games wasn't sure if he was still performing. But here he is with a medal! I also spent the last hour watching old carifta tapes, like you say, where are these people!!! We gat some speedsters at the high school level.
sheeprunner12 6 years ago
Where is Stephen Gardiner????? ........ He is the best 400m runner in the world this year .......... Has he stopped running for the country??????? .......... Is he and BAAA/BOA in some dispute??????? .............. AND MUMS THE WORD.
ThisIsOurs 6 years ago
oh the Tribune had a story on him just last week, he competed in Florida, I think he broke a record. I suppose that doesn't eliminate your conspiracy theory so I'll put on my foil hat just in case.
jamaicaproud 6 years ago
Ok. The news said he had to remain hostage in the USA to collect his green card.
ThisIsOurs 6 years ago
Yes that's it...on second thought I'll keep my tin foil hat on, the conspiracy theory could have gotten stronger
Mr_Right 6 years ago
Raymond Oriakhi took the silver medal in the U17 400m. Initially he got Bronze but the Bajan athlete got disqualified moving him up to silver.
ThisIsOurs 6 years ago
Oriakhi!! He's very tall, maybe he's another Stephen Gardiner, or... Maybe he's the first Oriaki
Pearl 6 years ago
That last leg by Alonzo Russell was just amazing! Congratulations to all the team, what a great way to finish the games.
ThisIsOurs 6 years ago
Do you have a link for the video? Been searching all weekend. Will check again
DaGoobs 6 years ago
This Commonwealth Games team highlighted for me just how disorganised and uncoordinated our national sports team selection process is in this country. We sent kids to swim at the Games days after competing at the CARIFTA Swimming Championships and expected miraculous results out of them. That has to be as ignorant as it gets; they should have gone to one competition or the other but not to both. We send a 39 year old triathlete, an elderly table tennis player, 2 cyclists and a 36 year old wrestler to the Games, none of whom appear to have exposure or records of achievement at the international level or stood any real chance of achieving a high placing in their sport at the Games. They went in with very little and came out the same way, other than to say they competed at a Commonwealth Games. We send 4 women to compete in a 4 x 100m relay but then withdraw them without actually running. Better to have let them run their race, after all that's what you took them all the way to Australia to do. Look at what happened with the men's 4 x 400m relay team? A silver medal with none of the big horses running on the team, a bunch of no-names most of us never heard of besides Dirty. What is it that we are trying to achieve at these Games? To say that we took a bunch of athletes from different sports to gain international exposure? Or that we are trying to make finals, achieve high placing, make quarter finals/semifinals/finals and maybe win medals in as many of these sports as we can? We don't seem to have a long-term plan as to why do we attend these Games or what do we hope to achieve by going. It has to be about more than just attending for attending's sake.
sheeprunner12 6 years ago
Because these BOA/Federation heads are getting shit loads of money to spend on trips all around the world ....... with NO junior/island programs ....... so they pick up any trash and put country colours on them and say we have a "national team" ........... Sports is a big, fat, elitist joke in this country.
No basketball program ....... No baseball program ...... No softball program ....... Thank God for NCAA track/swim programs ........ The others are pipe dreams ......... And cricket is our national sport???????
The Minister of Sports is very dishonest and disingenuous when he speaks about "our sports power" ....... We have too many selfish, bigoted sports administrators.
ThisIsOurs 6 years ago
I heard about Dirty before..remember he was the young man in school in Florida who outran the police dog. I recall him running at two competitions at the stadium post that dog outrunning feat. One was IAAF and I believe the other was Carifta but I'm not sure could have been the Chris Brown invitational.
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