Bermuda’s hopes of a third Carifta Games medal were cruelly dashed on Monday when 800 metre runner Taijuan Talbot was pushed off the track while leading the boys’ under-20 final.

According to team manager Donna Watson, Talbot was looking comfortable at the front of the pack at around the halfway stage of the race when a Jamaican rival decided to try and make a move — using his elbow to knock the Bermudian aside as he attempted to get past.

The force of the contact sent Talbot sprawling on the sidelines and though he managed to get to his feet and complete the race, he ended up finishing well behind the rest of the field.

The Jamaican runner’s illegal push was spotted by race officials in the Turks and Caicos islands and he was subsequently disqualified — though with the schedule packed so tightly, there was no question of rerunning the race.

“It was very unfortunate and Taijuan was very disappointed afterwards,” said Watson from Miami airport yesterday on her way back to the Island.

“He was in control of the race, and looking at the top three times there’s no doubt he would have got amongst the medals if he hadn’t been pushed over.

“A race official was right there when it happened so the Jamaican runner was quite rightly disqualified, but there just wasn’t enough time to do the race again.

“It’s a difficult situation for Taijuan because he was really focused on medalling in that race. But he’s only young and has got a lot of competition ahead of him this season. Things like this happen on the track and it is just a matter of dealing with it and moving on.”

Talbot’s mishap meant that only one of Bermuda’s 16 Carifta athletes emerged from the Games with medals — that being middle-distance runner Matthew Spring who captured a bronze in the boys’ under-17 1500 metres and a silver in the 3,000 metres.

Jamaica finished the three-day meet with more than double the number of medals than everybody else — 76 — underlining Watson’s assertion on Tuesday that all of the smaller islands had been blown out of the water this year by the Jamaicans’ sustained excellence.

“At the end of the three days, the children recorded a total of 15 personal bests — which from our standpoint was great,” she said yesterday.

“In previous years that would have been good enough for many more medals, but if you look at the results this year most of our athletes were finishing between fourth and seventh. They weren’t outclassed by any of the other islands that’s for sure, but Jamaica were on a totally different level.

“It was a bit dispiriting for all the other islands — there were even some coaches there wondering whether Jamaica are now just too good for Carifta.

“One thing that was very noticeable about all their athletes across all disciplines was that not only were the Jamaican athletes talented, but also technically most of them were absolutely first-class.

“They clearly have had access to some outstanding coaching down there which they are all really benefiting from.”

Asked whether Bermuda currently possessed the calibre of athletes and coaches capable of making the Island more competitive at Carifta in future years, Watson said she believed the resources were there.

“What I think we’ve got to do is sit down when we get back and try and see whether we can get these young athletes competing more regularly overseas,” she said.

“The reality is is that most of the time they are only competing against themselves, but if we could get a few of them off the Island on a regular basis competing at good quality meets, then I think we’ve got a chance of doing better in the future.”

Meanwhile, in other action on the final day of competition, Taylor Ashley Bean placed sixth in the girls’ under-17 800 metres final with a time of two minutes 24.52 seconds while Darico Clarke finished fifth in the boys’ under-17 800 final with a time of two minutes 0.63 seconds.

Both runners recorded their personal best times in those races.

Deanne Lightbourn ended up sixth in the girls’ under-20 800 metres in 2.17.94 while in the boys’ under-20 5,000 metres, Sean Trott placed sixth with a personal best time of 16.32.07.

Kijuan Wilkinson took seventh in the boys’ under-20 triple jump with a personal best leap of 14.21 metres.

Final medal table: Jamaica 76, Trinidad and Tobago 37, Barbados 21, Bahamas 19, Bahamas 12, Martinique 3, St. Lucia 3, Grenada 3, British Virgin Islands 3, Anguilla 1, Cayman Island 3, Guadeloupe 6, St. Kitts and Nevis 4, Bermuda 2, Guyana 2, Aruba 1, Dominica 1, Antigua and Barbuda 1, Haiti 1, St. Vincente and Grenedines 1.