More gold medals flowed for T&T’s Special Olympians as the local athletes competing at the World Games in Abu Dhabi grabbed a further three gold medals, four silver, and four bronze yesterday.
It pushed T&T’S total tally to 10 gold, nine silver, and seven bronze. For another day, T&T found success, especially in athletics. Tobagonian Sapphire Jackson, claimed gold in the Softball Throw (which is an adaptation of Shot Put), throwing 7.83m. Bakhita Azab of Qatar was second with 7.48m and Christine Werkovits of Austria was third with 6.64m.
As she collected her gold medal, Jackson jumped in ecstasy, all smiles after a phenomenal feat. Her teammate, Israel Duncan, also captured his second gold for T&T, winning the Softball Throw. Duncan threw 23.89 m, ahead of Yolanda of Aruba (23.44m) and Kirk Wint of Jamaica (21.57m).
The “sprint queen” La Toya Charles claimed her second gold by adding the 100m sprint title to her 200m she claimed yesterday. Charles clocked 14.99 seconds ahead of Khiry Thompson of the United States and Aysha Isa Alsubei of Bahrain.
Tershana Tempro was able to win silver in the 100m sprint in 16.29 seconds while Donald Doyle placed sixth in the 400m final with a time of 1:06.20.
Swimming also continued to produce success for T&T athletes at the games. Donavon Garib earned bronze in the 50m butterfly in a time of 36.74 seconds while Stefan Singh repeated his feat of winning silver in the 1500m Open Water Swim. He had won silver at the 2015 games in Los Angeles.
The bocce team was in sensational form once more, with Bernard Singh being upgraded to bronze in the singles after the SOTT filed and won a protest. Alicia Khan earned her second silver medal at the games, this time in the singles competition when she lost 6:11 to Jing Wu of China in the final.
At the Al Forsan International Sports Resort, in the male English Equitation competition, Omari Petterson claimed silver with 38 points ahead of teammate Aaron Ben Ali who earned bronze with 36 points. Fellow rider Romaldo Stafford, won his first medal when he earned 39 points to claim a bronze medal in his division.
The female trio of Aaliyah Harrigin, Jamella Bart and Kellie Simmons, returned to action and all placed fourth in their “English Equitation”.
SOTT’s Honours Roll
10 gold, 9 silver, 7 bronze
• Athletics - 6 gold, 1 silver, 2 bronze
• Bocce - 3 silver, 1 bronze
• Equestrian - 2 gold, 2 silver, 3 bronze
• Swimming - 2 gold, 3 silver, 1 bronze