Rachael Thom­spon-King

Ayan­na Alexan­der leaped on­to the podi­um in Glas­gow, Scot­land yes­ter­day, to lift T&T's first pre­cious met­al of the Com­mon­wealth Games, a bronze medal in the women's triple jump on a cold night at the Ham­p­den Park Sta­di­um.Alexan­der was over­joyed at win­ning T&T's first medal say­ing, "I hope it sets the stage for oth­er medals to come. I had no idea I was re­al­ly fo­cused on my event. First fi­nal, first medal, I'm a woman in the field events so hope­ful­ly that says some­thing, peo­ple will start lis­ten­ing and pay­ing at­ten­tion."

Her fourth at­tempt of 14.01 me­tres brought her suc­cess, putting her be­hind even­tu­al win­ner Ja­maican Kim­ber­ly Williams (14.11) and sil­ver medal­list Eng­lish­women Lau­ra Samuel (14.09), re­spec­tive­ly.Alexan­der, re­turn­ing from an in­jury which left her im­mo­bile some time be­fore the games, jumped 13.54 in the first round, re­turn­ing in the next round to reach 13.75. By the third try, she hit the 13.99 mark as she chased the lead­ers. The next at­tempt she fal­tered some­what drop­ping to 13.53 but the fourth at­tempt, pro­duced the win­ning jump."Four months ago, I couldn't walk. I have been bounc­ing back from an an­kle in­jury. I wasn't too dis­turbed by my per­for­mance at se­nior champs be­cause I knew what the is­sue was so the plan was to come back here and come stronger," said the 2010 Com­mon­wealth Games sil­ver medal­list.

T&T quar­ter­mil­ers Jar­rin Solomon, Ren­ny Quow and Lalonde Gor­don cre­at­ed his­to­ry when all three en­tries ad­vanced to the fi­nal of the 400m fi­nal.Six of the eight fi­nal­ists are from the Caribbean in­clud­ing 400m spe­cial­ist Ki­rani James (43.74) of Grena­da, Ba­hami­ans Chris Brown (45.55) and La­toy Williams, South Africa's Wayde Van Niek­erk (45.41) and Eng­lish­man Mar­tyn Rooney (45.03).In the open­ing heat, Solomon (45.49) made a late sprint to catch Brown just be­fore the line to take sec­ond spot be­hind Rooney."I ex­e­cut­ed my race good. I ex­e­cut­ed the way I want­ed to. I came off the turn in first and that is what I want­ed to do. I said I was go­ing to run to 300 and hold on and I was able to do that," said Solomon.

Quow too came from be­hind to get in as one of the fastest losers, trail­ing James and Van Niek­erk in the sec­ond heat while Gor­don make a late charge to top heat three in 45.37.Know­ing that all three lo­cal run­ners made the fi­nals, Gor­don said, "This is a first time. Hope­ful­ly we all come out with some­thing."To­day, the lo­cal trio will line up at 3.30 pm (T&T time) for the medal race.

Tonya Nero was al­so in ac­tion late yes­ter­day, com­pet­ing in the 10,000m fi­nal. She ran a sea­son best 35:48.63 to place 12th.The morn­ing ses­sion was un­event­ful with none of T&T's ath­letes pro­gress­ing out of their re­spec­tive events.

Ky­ron Blaise failed to set a mark in the men's long jump, record­ing fouls in each of his three at­tempts. Back on the track, a poor ex­e­cut­ed run by Mikel Thomas saw him ex­it the men's 110m hur­dles in the heats.Thomas clipped five of the nine hur­dles, to still come in fourth in 13.86 but he just short by .15 sec­onds of the last qual­i­fi­er.Durell Bus­by and Wayne Davis pulled out of the events.It got even worse when Josanne Lu­cas' race was over be­fore it even start­ed. She false start­ed in the women's 400m hur­dles and was dis­qual­i­fied. The oth­er lo­cal com­peti­tor in that event, Janiel Bellille placed fourth in her heat in 57.51, not good enough to ad­vance.Next to go out were Ja­maal James and Kendis Bullard in the 800m. James fin­ished fourth in his heat in 1:51.62 while the lat­ter placed sixth in 1:51.57, to be elim­i­nat­ed.

SUM­MA­RY

Swim­ming

Top lo­cal swim­mer George Bovell clocked 22.31 to place fifth in the fi­nal of 50m freestyle event.Cop­ping gold was Bren­don Proud (21.92) of Eng­land while Aus­tralians Cameron McEn­voy and James Mag­nussen, who won 100m freestyle sil­ver and gold, re­spec­tive­ly, was sec­ond third.

Hock­ey

Kwand­wane Brown scored a hat­trick and helped T&T's hock­ey men's team claim its first vic­to­ry ever at a Com­mon­wealth games, beat­ing Malaysia 4-2 in its fi­nal pre­lim­i­nary match.

It was Mick­ell Pierre open­ing the scor­ing for the lo­cal team as ear­ly as the eighth minute. Brown fol­lowed up four min­utes lat­er to give T&T a 2-0 ad­van­tage, re­turn­ing on­ly two min­utes lat­er to push the lo­cal stick­men fur­ther ahead, 3-0.Malaysia man­aged to pull one back in the 25th minute thanks to Norhiz­zat Sumantri.T&T was head­ing in­to the half with a 3-1 lead when Brown slipped one past the keep­er Hafizud­din Muham­mad Oth­man, to put the lo­cal hock­ey team up 4-1.In the sec­ond half, the Malaysians stepped its de­fense and held the T&T at­tack at bay. They were able to pull one back just be­fore time ex­pired through Ra­ma­da Muhamad Rosli in the 70th.

Net­ball

T&T net­ballers suf­fered an­oth­er huge loss in their fi­nal pre­lim­i­nary match, go­ing un­der to Eng­land 70-24.Again the "Ca­lyp­so Girls" were plagued by too many turnovers and not enough chances at the goal.Shoot­ing for T&T were Kali­fa Mc­Collin (4/6), Joelisa Coop­er (13/16) and Anas­tas­cia Wil­son (7/11).

Box­ing

Michael Alexan­der de­feat­ed Co­bia Breedy of Bar­ba­dos in the quar­ter­fi­nals of the men's light­weight (60k) event at the SECC.He now ad­vances to the semi­fi­nals to meet North­ern Ire­land's Joe Fitz­patrick on Fri­day.

Ta­ble Ten­nis

It was a busy day for T&T's ten­nis play­ers with the start of the men's and women's sin­gles com­pe­ti­tions.Dex­ter St Louis beat Nick­son Otieno Aba­ka of Kenya, 11-4, 11-1, 11-3, 11-6 in his open­ing match, re­turn­ing lat­er to top Bar­ba­di­an Kevin Far­ley, 18-16, 7-11, 8-11, 12-10, 11-8, 11-8.Aaron Wil­son al­so got wins in his two match­es against Daniel O'Con­nell of Wales (11-1, 12-10, 13-11, 11-7) and Pak­istani Tabish Khur­shid (11-5, 11-9, 11-6, 11-9).Cur­tis Humphreys al­so scored two straight vic­to­ries against Is­sa Ma­soud Mta­la­so of Tan­za­nia (11-5, 11-4) and Nicholas Es­ther of Sey­chelles, 11-8, 11-3, 11-2, 11-8.Rheann Chung got the bet­ter of Neema Den­nis Mwaisyu­la (Tan­za­nia), 11-5, 11-4, 11-5, 11-2 and Kaimalie Res­ture (Tu­valu), 11-3, 11-6, 11-3, 11-3 while Ash­ley Quashie suf­fered los­es to Agnes Wiron Nodo­ki (Tan­za­nia), 11-6, 7-11, 14-12, 11-6, 11-5 and Ga­ni­at Ogun­dele (Nige­ria), 11-1, 11-6, 11-6, 11-2, re­spec­tive­ly

Aleena Ed­wards al­so had a suc­cess­ful start de­feat­ing Kelsey Ke Maistre of Jer­sey, 11-6, 7-11, 11-9, 11-5, 11-5 and Ba­jan Krys­tle Har­vey, 6-11, 12-10, 11-6, 11-5, 8-11, 11-8.

Squash

Team com­pe­ti­tions be­gan yes­ter­day with lo­cal play­ers par­tic­i­pat­ing in men's, women's and mixed dou­bles.Col­in Ra­mas­ra and Kale Wil­son lost to Scot­land's Alan Clyne and Har­ry Leitch, 11-3, 11-4 in group play stage in the men's dou­bles.In the mixed dou­bles, Ra­mas­ra part­nered with Ker­rie Sam­ple and lost their open­ing to Eng­land's Daryl Sel­by and Sarah Kip­pax, 11-1, 11-4 in Pool D while Wil­son and Char­lotte Knag­gs, play­ing Pool F fell to an­oth­er Eng­lish duo Pe­ter Bark­er and Al­i­son Wa­ters, 11-0, 11-2.

Shoot­ing

Shoot­ers Roger Daniel and Rhod­ney Al­lan with­drew from the 25m Rapid Fire Pis­tol event.Michael Perez (373-21 points) and Nor­ris Gomes (344-21) placed 26th and 33rd in the Queen's Prize In­di­vid­ual event.