The Next Julien Alfred: Saint Lucia's Jady Emmanuel rises to Olympic champion's history-making status at CARIFTA Games

Saint Lucia may have already found the next Julien Alfred in Jady Emmanuel after the 16-year-old talent blazed to sprint double gold medals at the just concluded CARIFTA Games in Trinidad and Tobago.

The sprint sensation made history in the girl's U-17 category by winning Saint Lucia's first-ever gold medal in the 100m event with a personal best (PB) time of 11.50 seconds.

She also set a new Saint Lucian U-18 record with her mark, breaking Alfred’s previous time of 11.53s from 2017.

Not resting on her oars, Emmanuel was back in the 200m event and stormed to glory again, clocking a new National U18 Record of 23.47s (-0.4m/s) to claim the double sprint titles, thus becoming Saint Lucia's first-ever double CARIFTA Games sprint champion.

Emmanuel's double gold medals at the Games took Saint Lucia's tally to four, placing the nation sixth on the medal table. It’s the fourth time the Caribbean nation has had as many as four medals, but only the third time the team has claimed as many as two gold medals.

The remaining two medals were from Naya Jules, who won silver in the girl’s pole vault. She set a new personal best and also showed commendable performance in the Javelin throw event; however, she was left behind with the bronze position in the next to last round.

Another medal was achieved by Destinee Cenac - a 15-year-old student of Joseph’s convent. She participated in the under-17 girl's high jump and won the bronze medal behind Jamaica’s Sackoya Palmer and Barbados' Shia Mottley.

Since Alfred's Olympic success in Paris last summer, many young athletes in Saint Lucia have taken up the sport and now believe they can achieve great things with dedication, just like their star icon, Alfred.