Clay­ton Clarke

Je­hue Gor­don ran the fifth fastest time ever by a ju­nior (un­der 20) over the 400 m hur­dles. The 18-year-old Queen's Roy­al Col­lege stu­dent, clocked 48.47 sec­onds at the 2010 Ponce Grand Prix at Ponce, Puer­to on Sat­ur­day. That time has on­ly been beat­en by world ju­nior record hold­er Dan­ny Har­ris of the US (48.02 Sec­onds set 1984 Los An­ge­les Olympics) and Gor­don him­self when he clocked 48.26 sec­onds in fin­ish­ing fourth at the 2009 World Ath­let­ic Cham­pi­onships in Berlin, Ger­many in Au­gust last year. Har­ris has oth­er two times that are faster than Gor­don (48.11 and 48.13).

Gor­don, a five-time Carif­ta cham­pi­on, fin­ished third to Amer­i­can Michael Tins­ley. Win­ning the race was lo­cal-favourite Javier Cul­son, who clocked a world lead­ing 47.72 sec­onds. Run­ning out of lane six, Gor­don, the 2009 Pan Amer­i­can dou­ble sil­ver medal­list, fin­ished ahead of the 2004 Olympic and two-time World Cham­pi­on Fe­liz Sanchez of the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic who was fourth in 49.21. Vet­er­an Dan­ny Mc Far­lene (Ja­maica) was al­so be­hind Gor­don in fifth in 49.36 sec­onds.

Gor­don is prepar­ing for the 2010 World Ju­nior Ath­let­ic Cham­pi­onships sched­uled for Monc­ton, Cana­da from Ju­ly 19-25th. The Ed­win Skin­ner/Ian Hy­po­lite- coached ath­lete is now the favourite for the 400m hur­dles world ju­nior gold. He has the top three fastest ju­nior time for 2010. In ad­di­tion to his run in Puer­to Ri­co, Gor­don clocked 49.65 sec­onds at the To­ba­go Fal­cons Games in March and 49.76 sec­onds in tak­ing his first of two golds at the Carif­ta Games in the Cay­man Is­lands a week lat­er.

Aaron Arm­strong was run­ner up in the men's 200m. Arm­strong, a mem­ber of T&T's 2008 Olympic and 2005 World Cham­pi­onships sil­ver medal win­ning 4 x 100m re­lay teams clocked 20.97 sec­onds but was beat­en to the line by Amer­i­can Xavier Carter who won in 20.75 sec­onds the third of three races. Arm­strong was al­so third in the 100m clock­ing 10.17 sec­onds, a sea­son's best. Fin­ished ahead of Arm­strong was Chu­randy Mar­ti­na of the Nether­land An­tilles who who just edged Amer­i­can Trell Kim­mons in a pho­to fin­ish as both record­ed 10.12 sec­onds. In the women's 800m Melis­sa Deleon was fifth in 2 mins 03.67 sec­onds. The two lap race was won by Grena­di­an Ne­sha Bernard-Thomas 1:59:92.