The Penn Relays | USA vs Jamaica And The Rest Of The World | See Some Of The Best Races.

The Penn Relays | USA vs Jamaica And The Rest Of The World | See Some Of The Best Races.
his past Saturday should have been the final day of competition at the 126th staging of the Penn Relays at Franklin Field in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. However, the most popular relay event in the world failed to get off the ground as it became one of the sporting casualties of the coronavirus pandemic, which has stalled sporting events globally.
The penn relay as some of the best races over the years, Jamaica and the USA are sprint rivals and is always trying to defeat each other.
Over the years, the meet, especially among high school teams, has been dominated by the Jamaicans. The Jamaican teams have been so dominant that organisers have awarded the same prize of commemorative Penn Relay watches, and a big plaque to the first American high school team to finish behind a Jamaican team.

While of late we have seen the exploits of Holmwood Technical High School and Edwin Allen High School girls shining as Jamaican teams, undoubtedly the most dominant team at the carnival is Vere Technical High School. The team out of Hayes, Clarendon, has left an indelible mark at the meet. Once the local female high school queens of track and field, winning 21 ISSA/GraceKennedy Girls’ Athletics Championships title, including 14 in a row from 1979 to 1993, they took that dominant form to the Penn Relay. the penn relay is always a show down between the USA and Jamaica and the rest of the world

The school, which has also produced the most female Olympians for Jamaica, including Merlene Ottey, Deon Hemmings-McCatty, Beverly McDonald, Veronica Campbell-Brown, Merlene Frazer, Aleen Bailey, and Shericka Jackson, have set the bar high at Penns. They have captured a total of 39 Championship of America titles, with their first win coming in 1979 in the 4x100m event, with a team anchored by Ottey, and their last coming in 2013 in the 4x400m, where Jackson ran the anchor leg.

They are the only team to win four Championship of America relay events at one meet after doing so in 1991, after capturing the 4x100m, 4x400m, 4x800m and distance medley, the only Jamaican high school female team to win the latter at the meet. Possibly their greatest performance at the carnival also came that year as a 4x800m quartet which consisted of Charmaine Howell, Claudine Williams, Janice Turner, and Inez Turner-Gray romped to an impressive world junior record of 8:37.71 minutes. The highlight of that run was an amazing 800m split of 2:03.20 minutes by Inez. Incidentally, that record run still stands and is the oldest high school carnival record.

Surely that wasn’t the first time someone at the meet had run into this moral dilemma. Last April the Relays celebrated their 125th consecutive staging, a streak that endured through World Wars I and II without so much as a one-day postponement. Of course, that was before the coronavirus pandemic paused sports as we know them. “[In the past] we’ve escaped major calamities that suddenly befell the country,” says Johnson. “But the Relays have often been responsive to general societal changes, if you will, and this is a calamitous change.”

Under normal circumstances, 14,000 or so athletes; 500-plus officials and volunteers; and 100,000-odd fans would’ve attended the Penn Relays from April 23 through 25. Instead, the 400 gold watches, 3,450 winner’s medals and 144,000 runner’s bib safety pins that Johnson had ordered will be stashed away until next year. The madhouse will be empty. Franklin Field will be silent. “Without the Penn Relays,” Johnson said in the news release one month ago that announced a cancellation of the 126th carnival, “springtime in Philadelphia will not be the same.”
Saturday, in 2005.
Michael Johnson anchored the winning 4x400 team the first two years, with his 2001 race being his last on American soil. Allyson Felix was a part of a record 12 winning teams in eight years, running 100, 200 and 400 meters during that time. Justin Gatlin would win his first USA vs. the World watch in 2003 and his 11th and most recent last year. Sanya Richards-Ross also took first seven times, first in 2005, last in 2016.

Jamaica delighted its fans in 2017 with three victories, including a 4x100 performance anchored by Olympic gold medalist Elaine Thompson that barely missed the carnival record.

The United States rebounded last year with five victories in six events. The women’s sprint medley team of Destinee Brown, Aaliyah Brown, Kimberlyn Duncan and Raevyn Rogers broke the world record, clocking a time of 1:35.20.

For Gatlin, who first appeared at the carnival representing Tennessee in 2001, the Penn Relays are pretty much an annual destination made possible by USA vs. the World.

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