Natalie Dumas is the first South Jersey athlete to win a gold medal at the Under-20 World Championships in 40 years.
Dumas won gold when the U.S. mixed 1,600-meter relay team set a world Under-20 record of 3:15.31 Wednesday after Dumas split 52.35 on the 2nd leg in the semifinals earlier Wednesday at Hayward Field in Eugene, Ore.
I spent a chunk of time Thursday looking through all-time World Under-20 results going back to the first meet in 1986 in Athens, Greece, and only found one other champion and two other medalists from South Jersey in a meet that was until recently known as World Junior Championships.
In 1986 in Athens, Kingsway’s Denise Liles ran the 3rd leg on the U.S. 400-meter relay team, which won the final in 43.78.
“Winning that gold medal in Athens is something I’ll always remember, because it was the first time the (World Under-20) Games were held,” Liles said in an interview P.J. Wajda at my old paper, the Gloucester County Times, after she returned home to Woolwich Township.
“We will be known as the first winners of the relay, which I think is a good accomplishment. Going into the meet, we were a little nervous because we heard that the team from Nigeria was supposed to be good. But by the time the race started, we were relaxed and we ran our race. As it turned out, Nigeria wasn’t even a factor.”
The only other South Jersey medalist at World Under-20 that I found was Braheme Days Jr. of Bridgeton, who placed 3rd in the shot put with a 65-7 ¾ at the 2014 meet, also at Hayward Field in Eugene.
“I showed up at the meet and felt good,” Days told the Gloucester County Times. “We worked really hard this year and it’s nice to get the medal. The biggest thing I can take from it is to work hard, show up and compete as good as I can and maybe next time I can win the gold or silver.”
Dumas will race in the 400-meter intermediate hurdles semifinals on Saturday.
From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank 