Jamaica end Rio Olympics with Sterling performances

Photo: Jamaica’s 4x400m quarter of Javon Francis,Fitzroy Dunkley,Nathon Allen and Peter Matthews show off their silver medals after Francis ran a splendid anchor leg, moving from fourth place to second place to help his team get on the podium. (Getty Images)

Jamaica claimed two relay silver medals on the final day of track and field at the Rio Olympics Games on Saturday night to take their overall tally to 11 medals, 6 gold, 3 silver and 2 bronze, equalling the tally of eight years ago in Beijing, China.

Both Jamaican mile relay teams secured silver medals behind the USA in keenly contested finals, as the Brazilian crowd was treated to one more night of scintillating track and field action from fully committed athletes, who had spent the last days and nights, giving it their all inside the Olympic Stadium.

Jamaica’s female mile quartet, anchored by the inspirational Novlene Williams-Mills produced a season best effort of 3:20.34 to push Allyson Felix and her teammates to their season best effort of 3:19.06, while Great Britain, anchored by the ageless Christine Ohurougu finished in the bronze medal position with a relatively slow time of 3:25.88.

The Men’s team, anchored by the improving Javon Francis exceeded expectations in claiming the silver medal and can thank young Nathon Allen for a splendid second leg along with another impressive anchor leg from Francis, who changed his race strategy to secure second place.

Francis received the baton in fourth place and it seemed that Jamaica may have been out of the medals, but he paced himself well on the backstretch to keep pace with the leading pack before exploding off the final turn, blowing past two runners before going in chase of LaShawn Merritt, but it would prove to be a bridge too far as the USA secured Gold and Jamaica silver with the Bahamas claiming bronze.

Jamaica ended third in the medals table in the track and field section of the games, behind the USA and Kenya who secured 13 and six gold respectively. Kenya finished ahead of Jamaica having secured 6 silver medals in their overall tally of 13.