US sprinter Noah Lyles (© Getty Images)
The North American Trials for this year’s Youth Olympic Games were held early in the season, but the two-day competition in Miramar on 4-5 April still uncovered a handful of medal hopefuls for Nanjing later in the year.
Noah Lyles, who represented the USA at last year’s IAAF World Youth Championships, smashed his PB to win the 200m in 20.89. He finished comfortably ahead of US team-mate Amir Rasul (21.12), who had earlier won the 100m.
USA won all of the men’s flat track events up to and including the 1500m, but in other events it was Mexico who stood out.
Fresh from setting a PB of 17.79m with the 3kg implement last month to top the world youth lists at this early stage of the season, Maria Orozco found that 17.24m was more than enough to win the girls’ shot in Miramar.
Fellow Mexican Noel Ali Chama was another notable winner. The 16-year-old won the 10,000m race walk in 42:54.57, the fastest time in the world by a youth athlete so far this year.
Ximena Esquivel also took gold for Mexico, winning the high jump with a national junior record of 1.82m.
Jon Mulkeen for the IAAF
