Miller

Ashinia Miller of Calabar High School bowed out of the Inter-Secondary Schools Sports Association/GraceKennedy Boys and Girls' Athletic Championships with a new meet record of 17.41m in the boys' shot put class two event yesterday.

Fifteen-year-old Miller won ahead of Johnathan Lynford of St George's College, 15.51m, and Shaquille Lewis of Jamaica College, 15.39m.

Sean Samuels, also of Calabar High, held the previous meet record of 16.01m, which was established in 2005.

"I felt great and wonderful," Miller said. "When I won I hugged my coach and my fellow teammates. I even fell on the ground and cried," he said emphatically.

world youth championships

Miller, who also qualified for the World Youth Championships, said he had all intentions of breaking the meet record. At last year's championships he was beaten in the throw-offs and paced himself for a comeback this year.

"I decided to work harder for the win this year. The coach helped to prepare me and I was motivated to do well," Miller said.

"I love this sport and want to continue with it," he admitted.

Julian Robinson, one of the assistant coaches for the throws at Calabar, said he was pleased with Miller's performance.

"We started working right after Champs last year. He didn't make the finals last year and decided to work harder this year," Robinson said. "He told me he wanted to train with the team that would attend the Penn Relays so his preparation was very intense, but measured," he said.

expected performance

Robinson said he had expected him to perform well, but the record was unexpected.

"Coming up to Champs his performance was not as I had wanted. For a long time we were working to attain the World Youth qualifying mark. This week we worked on some technical aspects that helped him to throw farther, but I was pleasantly surprised," he said.