Trinidad and To­ba­go swim­mers Jaden Mills and Bre­an­na Bel­mar both failed to ad­vance from the heats stage af­ter plac­ing sixth in their re­spec­tive events when the swim­ming seg­ment of the 2026 Youth Olympic Games con­tin­ued in Dakar, Sene­gal on Thurs­day.

Com­pet­ing in the fifth and fi­nal heat of the men's 50m back­stroke at the Com­plexe Tour de L'Oeuf Dakar Aquat­ic Cen­tre, the USA-based Mills, 17, who at­tends Mc Cal­lie School, got to the wall in 28.03 sec­onds from lane one for the sixth spot in the heat and the 15th best time over­all, miss­ing out on a top eight spot to get to the gold medal splash.

Greece's Niko­laos Pa­p­atheodor­ou won the heat in 26.03 sec­onds, fol­lowed by Bel­gium's Alexan­der Van Hoey Bil­li­et in 26.15, Iran's Parsa Shahsha­hani in 26.96, Nige­ria's Aidan Du­mu­je-Abili in 27.71 and Aru­ba's Ocean Van Loon in 27.94, with Ton­ga's Alexan­der Vil­lia­mi fail­ing to face the starter.

On Wednes­day, Mills of lo­cal club Fly­ing Fish and coached by Dex­ter Browne claimed T&T's first medal in Sene­gal. He fin­ished in sec­ond spot in the 50m freestyle with a 22.99 sec­onds, join­ing fel­low swim­mers Chris­t­ian Homer and Dy­lan Carter as medal win­ners for T&T at the event.

Homer won T&T's first-ever medal, a gold in the 50m back­stroke in 2010, while Carter earned a sil­ver in the 50m but­ter­fly and bronze in the 50m freestyle in 2014.

Mills al­so con­test­ed the 50m but­ter­fly and clocked 24.79 sec­onds in the heats to reach the fi­nal, where his time of 24.65 sec­onds placed him fourth.

Al­so yes­ter­day, in the fifth and fi­nal women's 50m breast­stroke heat, 16-year-old Bel­mar lined up in lane two and got the wall in 35.24 sec­onds for the sixth spot and 16th best over­all.

Lebanon's Thea Obeid won the heat in 31.98 sec­onds, the fastest time over­all, with Hong Kong's Kiu Wui Man sec­ond in 32.30, the third-best time, and Chile's Lau­ra Fin­ger­huth third in 34.09, with Philip­pines' Chantelle Ri­an­nah Cole­man fourth in 34.25, and Lao Peo­ple's De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Re­pub­lic's Kay­lonie Am­phone­suh fifth in 25.14.

In her two pre­vi­ous events, Bel­mar was 22nd in the 50m freestyle and 40th in the 100m freestyle.