Smith ... big lead in decathlon

André Lowe, Senior Staff Reporter

Jamaica added three more medals to their Central American and Caribbean (CAC) Games tally yesterday to push their count to 38 as the meet moves into its final three days in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico.

Jamaica's quartet finished second behind Trinidad and Tobago in the men's 4x100 metres final. The Jamaican team which consisted of Kenroy Anderson, Oshane Bailey, Rasheed Dwyer and Lerone Clarke finished in 38.78 seconds behind Trinidad and Tobago's Games record 38.24 and in front of the Netherlands Antilles, 38.82.

The female sprint relay team finished third in 44.27 behind Puerto Rico, 43.46, and Colombia, 43.63. The Jamaica team was Audria Segree, Jovanee Jarrett, 100m hurdles bronze medallist Andrea Bliss and Anastasia Le-Roy.

Decathlete Maurice Smith is in full control of the event after yesterday's first set of events, winning four of the five events to close at the halfway stage on 4,229 points; 292 more than Puerto Rico's Marcos Sanchez, who is on 3,937. Steven Morrero, also from Puerto Rico, is third on 3,843.

Smith took the 400m in 49.20, the 100m in 10.82, the long jump with 7.32m, the shot put with 15.76m. The Jamaican could, however, only manage fourth place in the high jump with a best height of 1.94m.

800m bronze

Aldwyn Sappleton won bronze in the men's 800m with a run of 1:48.12 to finish behind Venezuela's Eduar Villanueva, 1:47.73, who barely got the better of Haiti's Moise Joseph, who clocked 1:47.79.

Sappleton, running from lane four, took the initiative in the early stages of the race, posting a decent 54.05 split after the first lap, but was unable to hold on to his lead during the closing stages.

National champion Wilbert Walker just missed out on a medal in the triple jump, finishing fourth with a best leap of 16.65m. The former Morant Bay High athlete actually entered the final round of jumps in the bronze medal spot but was nudged out by Haitian Samyr Laine, who recorded a 17.01m jump at his last attempt.

The gold medal was won by Grenada's Randy Lewis with a best of 17.20m. Leevan Sands of The Bahamas got silver with 17.01m.

Jamaica recorded a 75-68 win over the British Virgin Islands in overtime, to advance to the fifth place play-off in basketball. Alleem Scoh (21 points, 7 rebounds) and Ricardo Alliman (13 points, 26 rebounds) led the way for the Jamaicans.