The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

St George’s, Grenada — Neither Douvankiylin Rolle or Ramel Poitier performed as well as they expected, but they are still happy to leave the Grenada National Athletics Stadium as silver and bronze medallists in the boys under-20 pole vault.

On day two of the games, Rolle soared 3.70 metres or 12-feet, 1 1/2-inches and Poitier did 3.60m (11-9 3/4) as they trailed Dane Smith from Jamaica, who won with 4m (13-1 1/2).

“The performance was my best I could do. It was better than my last performance,” said Rolle, a 17-year-old student of CV Bethel. “Even though this was my year at Carifta, I never thought that I would have gotten over the height. If it wasn’t for God, I don’t think I would have gotten it in the first place.”

In an event that has not been contested in Grenada before, Rolle said he was just thrilled to have carried the Bahamian flag with Poitier.

“We just just wanted to show them that the Bahamas was here and we wanted to get in the headlines,” he said. “The crowd was really great. They were very supportive. I felt a lot of energy coming from them, especially the people from Grenada. It just gave me a little push to know that they were there for us.”

Poitier was a little disappointed in his performance, he’s not going to hang his head in shame.

“I was hoping that we would go home with gold and silver, but things didn’t work out as we planned,” he said. “We did give it our all and we will be back next year to win the gold and silver. I had a little pain in my leg, which hampered me from going out as hard as I wanted too. But we will take the silver and the bronze.”

Poitier said he was a little surprised that they got so much competition from Smith, but he’s confident that once they go back to the drawing board, they will take things around for next year when the games are held in Curacao.