McGregor shows her speed at Jamalco

Roneisha McGregor, the double 2019 World Championship 4x400 metre relay medallist, was the marquee performer at last Saturday's JAAA/Jamalco Development meet at Halse Hall. With retired Olympians Belinda Phillips, Jackie Pusey and Ethlyn Tate watching, McGregor took her first steps towards the 2020 Olympics with a nifty win in the 100 metres.

McGregor zoomed stylishly to a winning time of 11.82 seconds with a friendly breeze pushing her across the Halse Hall grass track. After her show of speed, she said her success in 2019 is pointing her forward. "Well it sets me up to just go into 2020 especially a bit more harder in training and to overcome the obstacles," said the woman whose 50.8 seconds relay leg helped Jamaica secure the silver medal at the World Championship in the mixed 4x400 relay.

Asked about her outlook this year, she simply said, "I'm working towards making the Olympic team."

A privilege

Mention of the World Championship where she also ran in the first round of the women's 4x400 put a smile on her face. "It was a privilege going to the World Championship last season, representing the country at the highest level so it was an amazing feeling," McGregor happily recalled.

The other notable performance of the day came from reigning Central Championships 100 winner Kishane Thompson of Garvey Maceo High School. First, he took the Class One 100 metres in 10.84 seconds and later on a blustery afternoon, he ran a solid 400 metres in 49.54 more than a second ahead of the next fastest time. Injured at Boys and Girls Championship last year, the burly Thompson will be a medal contender in March.

McGregor's old Hydel schoolmates showed formidable sprint depth. Jada Martin led a 1-2-3-4 finish with a wind-aided clocking of 25.21 seconds in the class 1 200 and her time of 58.54 sparked a Hydel 1-2-3 in the 400.

By contrast, Girls champion school Edwin Allen High won all the 1500 metre races with Kayann Green on top in class 1 - with a noteworthy time of 4 minutes 47.98 seconds, Rushana Dwyer first in class 2 and Rickeisha Simms leading in class 3. In the last two weeks, Green and Dwyer have run the second and last legs on Edwin Allen's victorious 4x800 relay team at the Central Hurdles and Relays and the STETHS Invitational.

Remarkably, on the Santa Cruz grass on January 25, Jessica McLean, Green, Abigail Pinnock and Dwyer - the foursome that won at the Penn Relays last year - clocked a record time of 9 minutes 12.91 seconds.

1972 Olympic swimmer Phillips, and two-time Olympic sprinters Pusey and Tate were honoured by the organisers.