Calabar High’s prodigy Christopher Taylor
Calabar High’s prodigy Christopher Taylor, who broke three records and won four gold medals at the Inter-Secondary School Sports Association (ISSA) GraceKennedy Boys’ and Girls’ Athletics Championships, was the toast at his school yesterday.
Taylor, 16, rewrote the Class Two 200m and 400m records with 20.80 and 46.33 seconds, respectively. He also ran a blinder on the 4x100m second-leg helping his team establish a new record in 40.29 seconds.
The reigning World Youth 400m champion then brought the house down anchoring Calabar to victory in the 4x400m.
“That was the plan going into Champs to get the two records out the way first and then to defend the 4×100 and 4×400 and that’s what I did and came out victorious,” Taylor told the Jamaica Observer.
“I am feeling very great about the performances. We went out there with a strong team, but not focus in the first part. But we came out and won the championship,” said Taylor.
Calabar High amassed 287.50 for their fifth consecutive title and their 26th overall. The green-and-black ‘Lions’ were 49.50 points ahead of Kingston College (KC) on 238 points with Jamaica College (JC) third with 229 points.
Having won two individual events, Taylor, in a noble gesture, gave one of his medals to his team captain Fabian Hewitt during the celebration at the school yesterday. Hewitt, just coming back from injury this season, failed to medal in his individual 100m and 200m events and saw his silver medal winning 4x100m relay squad disqualified.
The awards were coming in fast for Taylor as a star performer. Flow, in one of those gestures, provided him with free Triple Play service of a land line, fast speed internet and cable at his home for one year.
Taylor, who has been unbeaten at Champs for two years, capped a wonderful championship with a battle of speed and will against another standout in Akeem Bloomfield of KC in the 4x400m event.
Fans have been hoping that the two most promising quarter-milers in Jamaica would clash on the anchor leg and weren’t disappointed.
Other members of the relay team had given Taylor a 15-metre advantage over KC, but Bloomfield on the final exchange had ideas of his own.
Bloomfield, the Class One 400m record holder, made a tremendous surge and overtook Taylor at the 150-metre mark and established a five-metre advantage. But Taylor was not perturbed and he bided his time into the straight before sprinting past a tiring Bloomfield 50 metres out for a spectacular victory.
“The plan was to relax and let him (Bloomfield) come by and that’s what happened. Then I just executed the perfect race plan that I planned and I came out with the victory also,” said Taylor.
— Howard Walker
