100m sweep gives Immaculate the thrills

Immaculate Conception High School didn’t win the Corporate Area Championships team title last week, but a 100 metres sweep has put the school on everybody’s radar. Sprint coach Floyd Quarrie says what Gabrielle Lyn, Mickaila Haisley, Shevi-Anne Shim and Kedoya Lindo achieved was part of a plan targeting success at the ISSA/GraceKennedy Boys and Girls’ Athletics Championships.

The school community is delighted.

“Between myself and the head coach Franz (Forde), we’ve been getting a lot of calls, from the alumni and teachers. I’m sure the principal is ecstatic. It’s been appreciated and welcomed across the board from the school body,” Quarrie said yesterday.

Lyn led an Immaculate one-two in Class One in 12.09 seconds, ahead of Chanel Honeywell, with Haisley going 11.95 in Class Two; Shim, 12.07 in Class Three; and Lindo, 12.16, edging Natrese East of Wolmer’s Girls (12.19) in Class Four. It was the first such sweep in the history of the Corporate Area Championships.

Shim returned to complete the Class Three sprint double with a win in the 200m.

“The target was always Champs. The Corporate Area was one of the hurdles on the way there, so the aim is to get to Champs,” he underlined, with his mind on Boys and Girls’ Championships in early April.

Quarrie set the goals for his sprinters in August, with the 2021 Boys’ Champs Class One, Two and Three 100m sweep by St Elizabeth Technical (STETHS) driving his thoughts.

“I said, I want to try and get to the finals this year in the sprint events at Champs, and that was motivated by the work of coach Reynaldo Walcott at STETHS, winning all the boys’ 100m finals at the Boys and Girls’ Champs last year.

“We got it at Corporate Champs,” he declared.

SHOOT FOR THE STARS

“I know it’s definitely not going to be a walk in the park,” he said, in reference to Boys and Girls’ Championships. “But as a coach, I always coach my athletes to do their best and compete at their best. We’re not going to fall short of that aim. We’re going to shoot for it. As I say, shoot for the stars. If you miss, you drop on the moon.”

The coach has learnt from the likes of top coaches Glen Mills and Stephen Francis, and from ongoing observation.

“So training sessions start with teaching, so I think once they learn the technicalities and the principles of sprinting, then it’s easy to apply more as we go along,” explained the 36-year-old Quarrie.

Haisley won by 0.43 of a second in Class Two, and the coach will polish and shine her technique before she faces the impressive Hydel High School pair of Kerrica Hill and Alana Reid next month at Girls’ Champs.

“She has a few little kinks that we need to clean up,” Quarrie added.

“So, it’s just to get her, as she is now, as best as possible, technical-wise and competitive-wise, and that should reap some sort of continual upward progress for her,” he reasoned.