T&T’s Nicholas Paul was de­nied a sec­ond gold medal in as many events at the 22nd Com­mon­wealth Games (CG) in Birm­ing­ham, Eng­land on Sun­day af­ter he lost out to Aus­tralian Matthew Richard­son in two straight rides in their best-of-three men’s Match Sprint fi­nal at the Lee Val­ley VeloPark in Strat­ford.

With the sil­ver, Paul in­creased his tal­ly and T&T’s medal haul at the games to two, a gold and sil­ver, one gold medal shy of the three medal haul (two gold, one sil­ver) won four years ago at the Gold Coast in Aus­tralia edi­tion.

Over­all, at 18 of the 20 edi­tions, T&T has won a to­tal of 57 medals (11 gold, 22 sil­ver, and 24 bronze) with its best show­ing be­ing nine medals in Kingston, Ja­maica in 1966 (five gold, two sil­ver, and two bronze).

Less than 24 hours af­ter the 23-year-old Paul’s gold­en ride in the men’s keirin fi­nal to land this coun­try’s first medal by a lo­cal cy­clist since Roger Gib­bon won two gold medals at the 1966 edi­tion of the CG in Kingston, Ja­maica, com­pet­ing in the men’s sprint and 1km Time Tri­al events, Paul again start­ed as the pre-race favourite in the Match Sprint fi­nal against the 22-year-old Aussie.

How­ev­er, the UCI Train­ing Cen­tre in Swiz­ter­land-based cy­clist nev­er got in­to his full stride in any of the two rides, first los­ing by +0.029 sec­onds and then +0.628 sec­onds in the must-win sec­ond ride.

Ear­li­er in the morn­ing ses­sion, Paul who came in­to the games on the back of vic­to­ries at the last round of the Tis­sot UCI Track Na­tions Cup in Cali, Colom­bia where he was rac­ing for the first time af­ter break­ing his col­lar­bone in April at the first round of the UCI Track Na­tions Cup, in Glas­gow, Scot­land was the fastest qual­i­fi­er of the 26 rid­ers in 9.445 sec­onds with a Games Record av­er­age speed of 76.231 while Richard­son was sec­ond fastest in 9.598 fol­lowed by Scot­land’s Jack Car­lin (9.599), Aus­tralians Matthew Glaet­zer (9.652), and Thomas Cor­nish (9.747).

The oth­er qual­i­fiers to the round-of-16 were Eng­land’s Hamish Turn­bull (9.790), Malaysia’s Shah Sahrom (9.846), Cana­di­ans’ Nick Wammes (9.860) and Ryan Dodyk (9.920), New Zealand’s Sam Dakin (9.928), Cana­da’s Tyler Rorke (9.986), T&T’s Kwe­si Browne (10.012), Scot­land’s Al­is­tair Field­ing (10.020), Eng­land’s Ryan Owens (10.026) and New Zealand’s Sam Web­ster (10.033) while T&T’s third rid­er Quin­cy Alexan­der was 22nd with a time of 10.339.

Up next was the one-off round-of-16 where Paul made light work of Web­ster to win in 10.212 with his chal­lenger, +0.151 be­hind in the first heat, while Browne trailed Cor­nish by +0.066 in heat five.

Paul then came up against Cana­da’s Dodyk in the best-of-three quar­ter­fi­nals rides, and won hand­some­ly in race one with a time of 10.825, with his ri­val +0.276 sec­onds be­hind, while in the sec­ond ride in 10.408 with his op­po­nent, +0.057 sec­onds be­hind.

How­ev­er, in the semi­fi­nals against Glaet­zer, Paul was caught out in the open­ing of three rides with the Aussie win­ning in 10.018 sec­onds, on­ly for the T&T speed­ster to re­bound with vic­to­ries in the must-win sec­ond (9.928), and de­ci­sive third ride in 9.816.

Richard­son, 22, al­so had to claw his way out of a hole in his semi­fi­nal, af­ter Car­lin took the open­ing ride in 10.176, with the Aussie win­ning the next two in 9.923, and 10.130 to se­cure his spot in the fi­nal, where he stunned gold-medal favourite, Paul.

With his win on Sat­ur­day, the Gas­par­il­lo-born Paul, a for­mer Na­pari­ma Col­lege stu­dent who on­ly picked up the sport of cy­cling at age 15, joined fel­low cy­clist Roger Gib­bon, Mike Agos­ti­ni (ath­let­ics), Michelle-Lee Ahye (Ath­let­ics), Kent Bernard (ath­let­ics), Ato Boldon (ath­let­ics), Hugo Git­tens (weightlift­ing), Wen­dell Mot­t­ley (ath­let­ics), Jereem Richards (ath­let­ics), Ed­win Roberts (ath­let­ics) and Rod­ney Wilkes (weightlift­ing) as gold medal win­ners for T&T at any Com­mon­wealth Games.

In the 15-man men’s 15km Scratch Race, the 2021 Elite Pan Amer­i­can cham­pi­on Ak­il Camp­bell, 25, who won gold at the re­cent UCI Na­tions Cup in the men’s Elim­i­na­tion race in Colom­bia qual­i­fied failed to com­plete the fi­nal along with six oth­er rid­ers af­ter he qual­i­fied in the tenth spot from his qual­i­fy­ing heat one, while Alexi Cos­ta-Ramirez was one of two rid­ers who failed to com­plete the women’s 25km Points Race fi­nal.

Paul will be in ac­tion yet again to­day from 10.32 am as he faces the starter in the men’s 1,000m Time Tri­al fi­nal against 21 oth­er rid­ers, and will be keen to make amends for a fourth-place fin­ish in the same event in Colom­bia in ear­ly Ju­ly while Cos­ta-Ramirez lines up in the women’s 10km Scratch Race fi­nals from 12.07 pm and Camp­bell faces the start in the men’s 40km Points Race qual­i­fy­ing round heat two from 9.22 am.

Paul punch­es

Su­per Heavy­weight quar­ter­fi­nals tick­et

Box­er, Nigel Paul made an im­pres­sive start to his cam­paign in the men’s Su­per Heavy­weight (over 92kg) against Jean Christophe Stephan Otendy of Mau­ri­tius win­ning his bout af­ter the ref­er­ee stopped the con­test with one minute, 38 sec­onds in the open­ing round at the Num­ber 5 Hall 4 in their round-of-16 bout.

The 32-year-old Paul who won a bronze medal at the 2021 World Cham­pi­onship in Bel­grade last year will next en­ter the ring on Thurs­day at 4.45 pm for a quar­ter­fi­nal bout against Eng­land’s De­li­cious Orie, who had a first-round bye. To­day, An­tho­ny Shawn Joseph makes his de­but in the feath­er­weight (54-57 kg) round-of-16 against Pak­istani Ilyas Hus­sain from 2.15 pm and in Ju­do, Ty­rone Charles of T&T bat­tles Zam­bian Si­mon Zu­lu in a round-of-16 men’s 60kg con­test.

Carter scratch­es

from men’s 50m

back­stroke semis

In the morn­ing heats of the men’s 50m back­stroke, Carter was fifth in heat four of six in 25.81 sec­onds from lane sev­en for the 15th fastest time as he fin­ished be­hind New Zealand’s An­drew Jef­f­coat who won the heat in 25.04, fol­lowed by fel­low qual­i­fiers Welsh­man Liam White (25.30), Aus­tralian Bradley Wood­ward (25.39) and Cana­da’s Javier Acev­do (25.48) while sixth-placed Ba­hami­an Da­vante Carey al­so ad­vance with a time of 25.86.

How­ev­er, the top T&T swim­mer who took the fourth spot in the men’s 50m but­ter­fly fi­nal on Sat­ur­day, fin­ish­ing just off the medal podi­um with a 23.28, well off the 22.85 he swam for a sim­i­lar fourth place fin­ish at Worlds last month, a time which stands as his per­son­al best opt­ed out of the semi­fi­nals, with his spot go­ing to Jer­sey Har­ry Sha­la­m­on (25.93), who was sev­enth in the same heat four, while Cyprus’ So­fok­lis Mougis touched in 26.40 for the eighth spot.

How­ev­er, T&T’s oth­er com­peti­tor in the 50m back­stroke event, USA-based Jeron Thomp­son did not ad­vance from the sixth and fi­nal heat af­ter he end­ed in eighth from lane one in 26.93 sec­onds with the top five swim­mers in the heat, Scot­land’s Scott Gib­son (25.26), In­dia’s Sri­hari Nataraj (25.52), Aus­tralian Mitchell Larkin (25.52), Scot­land’s Mar­tyn Wal­ton (25.62), and Sin­ga­pore’s Zheng Wen Quah (25.78) all qual­i­fy­ing to the semi­fi­nals.

To­day (Mon­day, Au­gust 1) in the men’s 100m but­ter­fly, T&T duo, Cadell Lyons and Kael York will both line up in heat five in lanes one and sev­en re­spec­tive­ly from 6.19 am along with Ghana’s Abeku Jack­son, Cana­da’s Fin­lay Knox, Eng­land’s Ja­cob Thomas Tay­lor-Pe­ters, Aus­tralian Cody Simp­son, Eng­land’s Jamie In­gram and Sey­chelles’ Math­ieu Bach­mann.

The Mixed Team Re­lay quar­tet of Jean-Marc Grander­son, Kaya Alex­is Rank­ine-Bea­dle, Ja­son Costel­loe, and Jen­na Ross end­ed in 11th of 12 in the triathlon in one hour, 35.41 min­utes, just ahead of re­gion­al ri­val Bar­ba­dos who clocked one hour, 36.20 min­utes.

In the men’s sin­gles Plate round-of-32, T&T’s Chayse Mc Quan de­feat­ed Papua New Guinea’s Mada­ka Suari 11-8, 11-9, 11-3 be­fore los­ing to Fi­ji’s Mari­ka Matanatabu 11-4, 7-11, 11-7, 6-11, 9-11 in an en­ter­tain­ing round-of-16 match, while Char­lotte Knag­gs won by walkover from St Vin­cent and The Grenadines’ Ja­da Ross in the women’s Plate round-of-16 and meets Pak­istan’s Am­na Fayyaz in the quar­ter­fi­nals on Mon­day from 2.30 pm.

New Zealand downs T&T 3x3 Bball men

The na­tion­al men’s 3x3 bas­ket­ball team of Steven Lewis, Kem­rick Julien, Adri­an Joseph, and Shel­don Chris­t­ian end­ed with a 0-3 record in Pool B at the Smith­field Are­na in Birm­ing­ham af­ter a 12-21 loss to New Zealand yes­ter­day.

Beat­en by a sim­i­lar 21-6 mar­gin in both their match­es against Eng­land and Aus­tralia in Pool B on Sat­ur­day, the T&T men were hope­ful of se­cur­ing their first win.

How­ev­er, it was not to be as the Ki­wis got a team-high eight points from Tai Wynard while Do­minique Kel­man-Po­to added six, Jay­den Bez­zant five, and Richard Rodger two while Lewis led T&T with six points, Julien got five and Chris­t­ian, one.

The Ca­lyp­so Girls dropped to a 0-2 record in Pool B af­ter a 28-62 loss to Ugan­da at the NEC Are­na.

The Africans who went un­der to New Zealand 40-53 on Sat­ur­day in their cur­tain-rais­er led 13-6, 33-13, and 47-22 at the end of the first three quar­ters with Mary Chol­hok scor­ing 28 of 32 at­tempts and Sha­di­ah Nas­san­ga, a per­fect 25 of 25.

Sub­sti­tute Irene Eyaru chipped in with nine goals from 11 at­tempts for Ugan­da while goal shoot Afeisha Noel led T&T with 20 goals from 23 at­tempts, with Joelisa Coop­er, scor­ing the oth­er eight from 13 at­tempts.

Beat­en by host and de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons Eng­land 22-74 in their open­er on Fri­day, T&T will have a rest day to­day be­fore fac­ing un­beat­en New Zealand (2-0) on Tues­day, Au­gust 2 from 3 pm fol­lowed by match­es against Malawi (1-1) on Wednes­day, Au­gust 3, and North­ern Ire­land a day lat­er to end pool play.

Vol­ley­ball women beat­en

In women’s beach vol­ley­ball, the lo­cal pair­ing of Phyle­cia Arm­strong and Suraya Chase was beat­en in their women’s Pool B open­er against Mano­li­na Kon­stan­ti­nou and Zoi Kon­stan­topoulou of Cyprus, 7-21, 17-21.

The T&T women will al­so face Aus­tralians Talique Clan­cy and Mari­afe Ar­ta­cho del So­lar on Tues­day, Au­gust 2, from 9.30 am, and Sri Lankans Deepi­ka Ban­dara and Chathuri­ka Weer­ans­inghe, on Thurs­day from 4 pm.