Small Pan-Am team seeks a century of medals

WHEN TRACK and field resumes tomorrow at the Pan-American Games in Santiago, Chile, don’t expect a repeat of the record-breaking 2019 performance that saw Jamaica collect 15 medals.

However, the 2023 squad may produce enough quality to bring Jamaica’s all-time Pan-American Games track and field medal total to 100.

The tally, accumulated since the first Pan-Am Games in 1951, stands at 96 with 28 gold medals, 31 silver, and 37 bronze. Leading the race to 100 is Fedrick Dacres, who won the discus in both 2015 and 2019. If he wins again, the 2019 World Championship runner-up will outstrip Cuban Luis Delis, the 1983 and 1987 winner and American Anthony Washington, the victor in 1995 and 1999, with a third gold medal.

Present in Santiago to close the gap are 2015 Pan-Am shot put king, O’Dayne Richards, himself a former World Championship medal winner, 2022 400-metre hurdles World Championships finalist Jaheel Hyde, and 2023 World Championship women’s discus thrower, Samantha Hall.

The next best hope of a medal may come in the men’s 4x100 relay where a large portion of the G.C. Foster College Penn Relays champion 4x200 unit is on duty. Though it is very late in the year, their practised cohesion might just be enough.

The team also includes CAC Games bronze medallist, Elvis Graham, who has stretched the national record in the javelin to 77.31 metres.

Overall, expectations are modest. Of the six 2019 champions from the last staging of the Games in Lima, Peru, only one – Dacres – is in Santiago. In Lima, allied to Dacres’ repeat win, Elaine Thompson Herah, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, Shericka Jackson, Natoya Goule-Toppin and Danniel Thomas-Dodd won the 100, 200, 400, 800 and the shot put, respectively. In that competition cycle, the Games preceded the World Championships. This time, the 2023 Games is far past the World Championships in Budapest and it encroaches on preparation for the 2024 Olympics.

Jamaica’s Pan-Am Games history includes some brilliant moments. Don Quarrie did a 100/200/4x100 triple in 1971 highlighted by a world record in the 200, and with Marilyn Neufville winning the women’s 400 to give Jamaica four gold medals. After winning the men’s 400 in 1999, Greg Haughton joined with Michael McDonald, Danny McFarlane and Davian Clarke to win the 4x400 in a meet record – 2 minutes, 57.97 seconds – that still stands.

Clarke was on anchor when Jamaica defended that title in 2003, while Brigitte Foster-Hylton, Michael Frater and the late Germaine Mason took gold in the 100 metre hurdles, the 100 and the high jump, respectively.

Athletics began last weekend with the men’s and women’s marathons and will resume on Sunday with the 20 Kilometre walks paving the way for the full track and field programme on Monday.