The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

Denvaughn Whymns was so disappointed in himself with his two individual bronze-medal performances that he was more than determined to get the gold for the Bahamas’ mixed 4 x 200 metre relay team.

On the final day of athletics at the 6th Commonwealth Youth Games, Whymns powered from third place on the anchor leg to pass the two female runners ahead of him to surge across the finish line first in a time of one minute and 31.50 seconds.

Georgina Adam anchored England to the silver in 1:31.77 and Oarabile anchored Botswana to the bronze in 1:33.51.

Team Bahamas concluded the night by adding a gold, silver and bronze medal in the three relays contested to pull the curtain down on the games just before the closing ceremony was held.

Whymns got the baton from Kayvon Stubbs, who got it from Tylar Lightbourne, while Shaquiel Higgs got the parade started before the crowd in the Thomas A Robinson National Stadium that was waiting for the Bahamian national anthem to be played for the first time in the nine sporting games.

“I felt awesome. I had to come back out here and redeem myself,” said Whymns, who didn’t perform as well as he expected in getting the bronze in both the 110m hurdles and the long jump just after taking a few days off to recuperate last week from the trip to Nairobi, Kenya, for the IAAF World Under-18 Championships.

“I wasn’t happy with my performances, so I just decided to come out here and do better than I did yesterday. When I got the baton, I know I had to work because other teams were ahead of me, so I know I had to work hard to bring the baton home.”

All of his teammates were just as thrilled about his comeback performance.

“I feel like I executed well. We just wanted to get a clean pass and make it fast,” said Stubbs on passing the baton to Whymns. “He did an awesome job, so I’m very proud of him.”

Lightbourne took it a bit further. “I felt that God was on our side and we did what we were supposed to do,” she said. “I just want to thank God for the opportunity. We had a very strong team and a very good anchor leg. It was very good.”

While it was the first gold medal in all of the events for the Bahamas, the team joined the mixed 4 x100m and 4 x400m teams that got the bronze.

On the first leg, Higgs said he just wanted to put the team in contention and he accomplished that feat.

“I just wanted to get off the first curve and maintain it and hit all my points to give my team a good position,” he said.

“I know I could trust these guys. But Denvaughn filled me with plenty pride to come out there and do his best.”

In another best effort, the Bahamas’ 4 x 100m relay team of Lakelle Kinteh, Joel Johnson, Tylar Lightbourne and Adrian Curry ran 43.83 for second in their heat behind Australia’s winning time of 43.19.

However, in the first heat, only Jamaica ran faster in winning in 43.62 for the gold. That enabled Australia to get the silver and the Bahamas the bronze.

“I felt my leg went really well. I didn’t let the boys get too far away from me,” Kinteh said.

“I tried to keep it up the best I could. I feel good to finally get the medal. I would have liked the gold, but whatever God does is well done.”

Johnson, in getting the baton on the first exchange, said it was all about getting around the track.

“The execution of the exchanges was bad but , because of our natural talent, we were able to come back strong,” said Johnson, who missed an opportunity to medal in the 200m after he placed sixth in the final in 21.82 earlier in the day. “It’s good to get the medal.”

Lightbourne was just happy to be a part of the two relay-medal performances that came back-to-back.

“It was good. We had some problems on our exchanges, but we got it around and we medalled,” she said.

Curry, who picked up a bronze in the 100m, said it was all about finishing strong.

“It feels good,” he said. “We had a good team and a good set up. We had some minor issues, but the exchanges were good. We just had to get the baton around and finish the race.”

While Wymns walked away with three medals, a relay gold and two individual bronze, Lightbourne was the top female performer with her pair of relay medals.

Their performances, along with the silver medal from the 4 x 400m relay team of Marissa White, Corey Sherrod, Shaquiel Higgs and Gabrielle Gibson in 3:34.06 behind Australia (3:25.07), helped the Bahamas to move up on the medal chart from 20 to 17 with a total of one gold, two silver and 10 bronze for the country’s best showing ever with 13 medals.

England finished as the cream of the crop with 23 gold, 16 silver and 12 bronze for 51 medals.

Australia was second with 14 gold, 14 silver and 11 bronze for 39 medals and New Zealand got third with 31 medals, inclusive of 8 gold, 14 silver and 9 bronze.