A ray of sunshine broke through the cold, dark and wet atmosphere at Annecy's

Parc de Sports Sunday as the U.S. women's 4x100-meter relay squad captured

gold and set an American junior record of 43.52 to wrap up the World Junior

Championships.

The quartet of Angela Williams, Keyon Soley, Myra Combs and Shakedia Jones

romped home to victory after Combs blazed through the second curve to give

Jones an insurmountable lead. In clocking 43.52, the team broke a 15-year-old

record of 43.73, set by the national team at Colorado Springs on July 19,

1983.

American foursomes also picked up medals in all three other relays contested

on the meet's final day. The men's 4x100 (Casey Combest, Dashaun McCullough,

Amar Johnson, Russell Frye) missed the gold by the narrowest of margins,

crossing the line .01 seconds behind Jamaica at 39.71, while the men's 4x400

(Tony Berrian, Kevin Baker, Bryan Swarn, Andrew Pierce) also grabbed silver

behind Australia at 3:05.06. Nakiya Johnson anchored the U.S. women to bronze

in the 4x400 at 3:32.85, the fourth best time ever by an American junior

squad. Johnson was joined on the medal stand by Mikele Barber, Myra Combs and

Demetria Washington.

Long Beach CC's Sharif Paxton was the top individual performer for the

Americans Sunday, claiming silver in the 110m hurdles with a 14.10 clocking.

New Jersey prepster Todd Matthews was sixth at 14.40. In the men's pole vault

Jacob Pauli cleared 5.20m (17-03/4) to place sixth. Gabe Jennings of Stanford

ran well in the men's 1500, finishing sixth at 3:43.94 in a race that was

decided on the home stretch.

Overall, the American men and women won 13 medals, the second highest total in

seven trips to the World Juniors. The men's squad won the team scoring title

with 77 points, 12 ahead of runner-up Kenya. China dominated the women's team

scoring with 122 points, as the U.S. was second at 56. The Chinese tallied 16

medals, seven of  them gold. American athletes picked up two golds, seven

silvers and four bronzes to rank second on the medal table.