Jeneko Place and Taylor-Ashley Bean stole the show once again at the weekend as they both qualified for the CAC Junior Championships and Carifta Games, respectively, at a Bermuda Track and Field Association (BTFA) meet.

Sprinter Place, who qualifed for the Carifta Games last weekend, ran the 100 metres in a time of 11.11 seconds, the 200m in 22.49, and the 400m in 50.0. High School Front Street Mile champion, Bean, also made the grade for the Carifta Games in the Under-12 Girls 1,500m.

The Warwick Academy student made the 'B' standard for the competition with a time of 5.6.84 seconds. BTFA president Donna Watson said she was not surprised by the impressive performances of Place and Bean.

"We are not surprised by Taylor's performance," said Watson. "She has been selected as one of our athletes for the World Youth Olympics so we expected her to raise her performances.

"I think when these athletes have a specific goal to work towards then they will train harder and perform better. This will be the same with Jeneko.

"He is also one of the athletes who have been put forward for the World Youth Olympics therefore he has raised his performances.

"Jeneko has been one of our top junior athletes since last year as he won a bronze medal at the Island Games so our expectations have been high for him. At this present time Jeneko is working towards preparation for Carifta and I am sure after that he will level out a bit and then begin to get ready for the summer season. With Carifta being so early in the year our junior athletes have to peak twice in one year. We are used to it and train the athletes accordingly.

"The thing about it is once they have qualified they do not have to compete in all of the meets and concentrate on training as the pressure has been taken off them.

"Jeneko only competed in the 100m this weekend and he can choose to compete or not compete in the meets coming up." Place and Bean were not the only ones to qualify for international competitions."

Carifta hopefuls Dage Minors and Trey Simons also made the 'A' grade for the Under-17 3,000m and Under-20 5,000m.

Minors ran a time of 9.54.67 to qualify for the 3,000m, while Simons met his mark with a time of 16.33.47. Another CAC Junior Championships hopeful to qualify at the weekend was Kameron Creighton in the 3,000m.

Watson added: "We have another track meet this coming Saturday. I am hoping to get to at least 24 athletes for Carifta and we are only at 11.

"Several of them are knocking on the door and I have no doubt they will make the standard, but there has to be enough meets to give them the opportunity. We may look at adding in another one or two as we have a slight lapse this month."

In overseas action Jasmine Brunson placed first in the Clemson Games, jumping a distance of 5.94m, just .01 off the CAC Games standard.

Shianne Smith finished third in the Indoor Heptathlon with 3,584 points, an NCAA division II provisional qualifier, while Alexis Bean finished eighth in the 800m in a time of 2.21.03 in the Indoor Metropolitan Championships in her first year at St. John's University.