Spencer creates history in obstacles

Spencer, who opted not to double at the championships, won the girls' 400-metre hurdles in a new world junior leading time of 55.11seconds, upsetting American hot favourite Nicole Leach, who improved her fourth place finish from Grosseto, two years ago.

Leach entered these championships as the top junior in the event and was the strong favourite for gold after the first two qualifying rounds. However, she was defeated by a determined Spencer, who took the lead at the top of home straight and pushed the American into silver medal spot in 55.55sec.

Spencer, who is also a part of the MVP training group, which also includes joint-world record holder over 100m, Asafa Powell, became the first Jamaican female to win the 400m Hurdles World Junior.

"I am very happy, the last few days have been rough at times. I ran well the back straight which was my aim. I have to thank my coach Stephen Francis," the 19-year-old Spencer said.

Defending bronze medallist Sherene Pinnock, made it 1-3 for Jamaica when she repeated her third place run to capture the other medal in a personal best time of 56.67.

Sutherland loses but Quow prevails in the quarter mile

There were two huge upsets in the boys' and girls' 400-metre dashes. And guess what? The Caribbean was at either end of this feat. After the finals of the one-lap events, Jamaica's Sonita Sutherland and Great Britain's Martyn Rooney were both relegated to minor places despite coming into the championships as the overwhelming favourites.

Quow timed his run well

It was all fireworks for the Caribbean in the boys race when Quow punched in a new personal best of 45.74 to hold off two strong finishers with a superb late run and created a huge upset at the meeting on his way to winning the region's second gold medal of the day.

The Trinidadian defeated Justin Oliver of USA, who crossed the line four hundredth of a second behind, and Rooney (45.87), who after his fifth place finish at the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, Australia, in March, was seen as a firm gold medallist.

The victorious performance in Beijing sees Quow now becoming the third World Junior champion from Trinidad and Tobago. Short sprint runners Ato Boldon and current World Junior record holder and 2002 World Junior 100m champion from Kingston, Jamaica, Darrel Brown are the others who have won titles at the games.

Edino Steele of Jamaica, the number three runner on the World junior top list, finished fifth in 46.42, while his countryman Allodin Fothergill took sixth in 46.68.

Sutherland runs out of steam

Like Rooney, Sutherland was on course to strike gold after dominating at the junior races for the entire season. However, the Jamaican was shocked by Danijela Grgic, the Croatian 17-year-old World Youth silver medallist from Marrakesh, after totally misjudging the ability of her competitor.

Just as she did in the semi-finals a day earlier, Sutherland got off to a raging start and ran out of steam in the final 80 metres and could only watched as Grgic blew by her half-way down the home straight.

Grgic lowered her personal best to World Junior leading time of 50.78 to leave a struggling Sutherland fighting for the line, at 51.42. World Youth champion Nawal El Jack of Sudan, was third in a seasonal best time of 51.67.

Silver for Garcia in the Decathlon

The Caribbean also got another medal from Cuba's multi-athlete Yordanis Garcia, who won silver in the boys' Decathlon. Coming into the second say of the competition 22-pont lead, Garcia, the World Youth champion last year was overtaken after the first event in the afternoon session.

Russian Arkadiy Vasilyev, who started the day in third place emerged champion with a championship record score of 8059 over Garcia, who tallied a national junior record of 7850 points and New Zealand's Jordan Vandermade, at a national junior record of 7807 points.

In other results Jamaica's Anasthasia Leroy qualified fastest in the girls' 200m with a time of 23.57. Bulgaria's 100m winner Tezdzhan Naimova (23.63) land American Gabby Mayo (23.69) also went below 24 seconds in winning their semi-finals.