Elaine Thompson confirms her rise with consummate 200m National title win

By Kayon Raynor

Strong winds adversly affected the performances on the final day of the JAAA Supreme Ventures LImited National Senior Championships on Sunday where new champions were crowned in the 200m metres.

Elaine Thompson won the 200m in  22.51 relegating two-time Olympic and World Champion Veronica Campell-Brown to third.

Running into a wind of 2.4 metres per seconds, Thompson came off the turn in front and powered away to win by 26 hundredths of a second ahead of Sherone Simpson 22.77 and Campbell-Brown 23.02, who was only 2 hundredths of a second ahead of Simone facey 23.05.

Thompson, who has run 10.84 this season over 100 metres but opted to run only the 200m on the prompting of her coach Stephen Francis, was satisfied to win the half lap event into the heavy head wind.

"I tried my best to come off the corner pretty fast as much as my coach told me... I just did that and came out victorious so I'm happy," Thompson told reporters.
Noting she was under no added pressure to win after skipping the 100m, Thompson identified areas to work on ahead of the World Championships set for August 22 to 30.

"Looking ahead to Beijing I need to work on my corner (execution) as it is pretty slow, but I have to get off as fast as I can so I need to work on that," she said.

Nickel Ashmeade also battled a strong head win of negative 2.6 metres per sexond to win the men's 200m in 20.36 to ensure he will run both sprint events in Beijing.
Warren Weir, the silver medallist from Moscow 2013 placed second in 20.40. Weir finished ahead of Julian Forte with 20.51secs.

Moscow mile relay silver medallist Javon Francis won the 400m title in 44.70 after going through 200m at 20.7. The fast finishing Rusheen McDonald took second in 44.73.  Beijing Olympic semi-finalist Ricardo Chambers, who ended third in 45.10 was disqualified for a lane violation allowing Peter Matthews to book his ticket to the Chinese capital.

The women's 400m went to Commonwealth Games bronze medallist  Christine Day in a personal best equalling 50.16 to beat Commonwealth Games champion Stephanie Ann McPherson into third with 50.49. Their training partner Shericka Jackson was second in a personal 50.31.

2013 semi-finalist Danielle Williams captured her second national sprint hurdles title in three years posting  12.71secs (wind -1.1 m/s) to win the women's 100 metre hurdles final.
Her sister Shermaine placed second in 12.84, while Kimberly Laing was third in 12.89.

Triple jump Olympic finalist Kimberly Williams aided by a following wind of 4.0 metres per second cut the sand at 14.34 metres to win the national title.
Commonwealth Games Shot Put Champion O'Dayne Richards won the event in 20.13 metres, while Olivia McCoy won the women's Javelin title and Kimberley Williamson lifted the women's high jump crown.