In a thrilling last race-decider, Kingston College defeated Calabar High in the boys' section of the 99th staging of the GraceKennedy Boys' and Girls' Championships, by one and a half points.
From left to right: Delano Williams, Rolando 'Midnight Express' Reid, Adam 'Sunshine Express' Cummings and Patrick Campbell of Munro College after they collected the Class Two 4x100m gold medal at the National Stadium last Saturday.

As usual, we were spot on as the girls from Holmwood surprised even themselves with their points total - almost doubling the second-placed Vere Technical.

Going into Girls' Champs for the first time without any big names, Holmwood, though expecting to regain their title, were not looking to win by any huge margin. So the 184-point victory over their nearest rival came as a surprise.
Bridgeport High's 16-year-old sensation, Jazeel Murphy questions the field after winning the Class Two 200m and completing the sprint double. Trailing is Delano Williams of Munro College. (Photos: Bryan Cummings)

With all-round performances from their girls in each class, Holmwood steadily took over the lead from first-day leaders St Hugh's High and simply never looked back. Indeed, as the Championships rolled on, Holmwood displayed the dominance they have possessed over the years and proved that they are here to stay as a Champs powerhouse.

Possessing an understanding that seemingly surpasses their years of experience and existence, Coach Maurice Wilson's young charges in Classes Three and Four stepped up to the plate and made their presence felt.

Class Four 100 metres champion Dianna Johnson, Class Three 100 metres champion Osheen Erskine and Class Three jumps queen Janeive Russell are a few names that Holmwood will be hoping stick around for some time as they showed up big time last week.

Another name that the entire nation hopes will stick around is Holmwood's Chris-Ann Gordon. This 14-year-old dynamo clocked the fastest 400-metre time of the meet (for girls) when she won the Class Three event in 52.68 seconds. She returned later in the day on Saturday to take the 800 metres and complete her double. As if that was not enough, this future star returned for the night's last event - the 4x400 metres final - to hold off the likes of Jura Levy and Natoya Goule. Collecting the baton in first place, Gordon brushed off the challenges from the advancing pair of Goule and Levy and won going away. What makes it even more impressive is that this girl last year won the Class Four 100/200-metre double. Holmwood ended the Championships on 378.5 points with Vere second on 194.5 and Edwin Allen third on 191.
Kingston College's captian Kieron Stewart eases to the line as he wins the Class One 110m hurdles to lead the North Street charge on the final day of Champs.

Other points of note at Girls' Champs were Carrie Russell cementing this as her comeback year with a win over challengers Jura Levy and Gayon Evans in the Class One 100 metres, Nikita Tracy of Edwin Allen leading her sister Ristanna home for the first ever family quinella at Girls Champs in the 400 metres hurdles and St Hugh's High making the top 10 solely from their dominance in the throws with all 43 of their points coming from that route.

And the boys

In the boys' section, there was a lot of excitement as well. Some of it was caused by Dexter Lee's 100-metre victory. Some of it by Jazeel Murphy's sprint double-winning performance. Some were also caused by K'don Samuels of Jamaica College breaking the pole vault record. Even more excitement was caused by the double record breaking performance of Bellefield's middle distance guru Kemoy Campbell (by the way, Campbell's 5,000-metre victory, which took 12 seconds off the previous record was highlighted by him lapping 13 of his 15 competitors. The other two competitors were caught at the line and if he had five more metres, they would have been lapped as well).

But where 90 per cent of the eyes were focused on for boys' Champs was the battle between defending champions Calabar High and there arch-rivals Kingston College.
Bellefield High's Kemoy Campbell on his way to erasing the 17-year-old Championship record in the 5,000m.

The omens started to show up indicating we were in for a thrill from Wednesday afternoon. After the only final for the day, pre-Champs favourite Calabar's Marlon Thompson failed to make the final (giving them no points on the first day), KC's two athletes overperforming and ending the day with their school in second. After day two the men from North Street were in the lead and Calabar was beginning to move up finishing in third spot. On Friday disaster struck for Calabar as their top 100 metre sprinter Oshane Bailey fell coming out of the blocks in the Class One 100 metres final. Because he did not finish the race his team received no points for that event. This came on the back of a superb quinella for Kingston College as Kieron Stewart and Andre Peart, their captain and vice-captain respectively, ran home for their third consecutive one-two in the 400-metre hurdles.

On the final day with Kingston College 29 points ahead of Calabar and both teams being strongly represented in the finals on the day it was anybody's trophy. The Kingston College camp was sombre early on as news began to surface of a number of injuries to key athletes, Class Two sprinter Jovon Brown was out for the remainder of the Champs before day four even kicked off. Soon they were to lose Akino Ming, a key member of their crack 4x400 squad and a sure point provider in the 200 and 400 metres.

After the hurdles, Calabar lost Warren Weir and KC saw a glimmer of hope. That glimmer seemed to have been rubbed out when Fortis captain and talisman Kieron Stewart limped home in the Class One 200 metres.
Manchester High's Nataya Goule wins the Class One 800m over Holmwood Technical's, Keno Heaven, to complete the double after easily capturing the 1,500m title earlier on.

Already winning both hurdles, Stewart was looking to garner some extra points in the 200 when he pulled up coming off the curve. Instead of stopping, Stewart valiantly fought on to collect one point for his school for finishing in eighth place.

After that the writing was on the wall as the fans of the North Street-based school believed the title was theirs.

Strong performances from Class Three jumps champ Clive Pullen, Stewart and Peart took KC to a four and a half-point lead over a marauding Calabar High going into the final event. With Wier out for Calabar and Stewart and Ming out for Kingston College both pre-event favourites had to send out weakened teams.

With both teams knowing what they had to do (Calabar had to beat KC by five clear points) as they stepped onto the track.

St Jago won that event and STETHS placed second, the defending champions, Calabar, were third. It didn't matter, however, as placing fifth Kingston College garnered enough points to stave off the Red Hills Road boys' charge. With a final score of 223.5 to 222, Kingston College took the trophy back from Calabar high (who took it from them in 2007) and denied them a threepeat.

We told you that this year would be one to remember and TEENage has been with you every step. We want to say thanks for being with us throughout our Champs coverage and ask you to remember that here Every TEEN Mattters!