NIGEL SI­MON

nigel.si­mon@guardian.co.tt

Nicholas Paul ped­alled his way in­to the his­to­ry books when he copped T&T’s first gold medal at the 2022 Com­mon­wealth Games (CG) in Birm­ing­ham, Eng­land, yes­ter­day.

The 23-year-old Paul’s gold­en ride in the men’s keirin fi­nal at the Lee Val­ley VeloPark in Strat­ford was the first by a T&T 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.

The dis­play by Paul al­so capped off a re­mark­able re­turn to top form and fol­lows his vic­to­ries ear­li­er this month at the last round of the Tis­sot UCI Track Na­tions Cup in Cali, 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.

Along with Gib­bon, Paul now joins 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.

Start­ing as favourite in the fi­nal which al­so in­clud­ed coun­try­man Kwe­si Browne, Paul, who was seek­ing re­demp­tion for his mishap at the Olympic Games, was in the sec­ond po­si­tion for the first three laps of the six-lap fi­nal, on­ly be­hind Shah Sahrom of Malaysia with Scot­land’s Jack Car­lin in third.

How­ev­er, when the mo­tor­bike pac­er set­ter moved aside, Car­lin pow­ered his way to the front ahead of Sahrom and Paul.

But with two laps to go, the in-form Paul, who dom­i­nat­ed the UCI Na­tions League in Colom­bia re­cent­ly, ped­alled his way in­to the lead fol­lowed by Browne.

How­ev­er, while Paul con­tin­ued to ac­cel­er­ate and storm to a com­mand­ing gold medal win, Browne fad­ed in­to the sixth and fi­nal po­si­tion, 0.838 sec­onds be­hind his coun­try­man.

Car­lin earned sil­ver for Scot­land, 0.406 sec­onds be­hind Paul, while Sahrom end­ed with the bronze, 0.424 sec­onds be­hind, fol­lowed by Aus­tralian Matthew Richard­son (+0.482 sec­onds), and New Zealand’s Cal­lum Saun­ders (+0.723).

In the sec­ond round semi­fi­nal heat two, Paul qual­i­fied in the top spot as well ahead of Saun­ders (+0.172) and Richard­son (+0.244) while in the semi­fi­nal heat one, Sahrom won ahead of Browne (+0.099) and Car­lin (+0.223).

When the event ped­al off with the four heats, Paul topped heat two ahead of New Zealand’s Sam Web­ster, while Aus­tralian Thomas Cor­nish and In­dia’s David Beck­ham Elkato­h­choongo qual­i­fied for the repechage, and in heat one, Browne was the fourth fastest be­hind Aus­tralian Matthew Glaet­zer, Saun­ders and Eng­land’s Joe Tru­man, the lat­ter qual­i­fy­ing for the repechage as well, while T&T’s oth­er rid­er Quin­cy Alexan­der was fifth in heat four and qual­i­fied to the repechage as well.

Browne then qual­i­fied first in heat four of his repechage event ahead of In­dia’s Es­ow Es­ow, Cana­da’s Ryan Dodyk, and Ja­maican Daniel Palmer, while Alexan­der end­ed fourth in his first round repechage heat three rides be­hind Richard­son, Elkato­h­choongo, and Rid­wan Sahrom.

To­day, Paul is ex­pect­ed back in the cy­cling are­na along with Kwe­si Browne, in the Men’s Sprint Qual­i­fy­ing from 10.02 am with the round of 16 card­ed for 10.57 am, quar­ter­fi­nals at 11.34 am, and semi­fi­nals from 3.10 pm, and fi­nals at 5.42 pm.

Al­so in ac­tion to­day, Ak­il Camp­bell gets his first taste of cy­cling com­pe­ti­tion when he lines up against 12 oth­er cy­clists in the men’s 15km Scratch Race Qual­i­fy­ing Round heat one at 6.50 am at 10.53 am with the fi­nal at 1.42 pm, while Alexi Cos­ta-Ramirez rides for a medal in the women’s 25km Points Race fi­nal with 19 oth­er rid­ers.

Carter just miss­es 50m fly medal

Fol­low­ing a phe­nom­e­nal per­for­mance at the re­cent­ly con­clud­ed FI­NA World Cham­pi­onships, T&T’s Dy­lan Carter, who got sil­ver in 2018, took the fourth spot in the men’s 50m but­ter­fly fi­nal, fin­ish­ing just off the medal stand 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.

Eng­lish­man Ben Proud, 27, dom­i­nat­ed the men’s 50m but­ter­fly field to cap­ture gold hit­ting the wall in a mas­sive 22.81, the on­ly sub-23 sec­ond time among the field, beat­ing out run­ner-up Tzen Wei Teong of Sin­ga­pore (23.21) and Cameron Gray of New Zealand (23.22).

Not on­ly did Proud grab the gold, but the En­er­gy Stan­dard swim­mer did so in record-break­ing fash­ion, es­tab­lish­ing a new Com­mon­wealth Games com­pe­ti­tion stan­dard.

His 22.81 tonight over­took the pre­vi­ous Games record of 22.93 he put up him­self eight years ago in Glas­gow.

Proud’s out­ing here fell just .06 out­side of his British na­tion­al record of 22.75, a mark he pro­duced at the 2017 World Cham­pi­onships.

More re­cent­ly, at this year’s World cham­pi­onships, Proud pro­duced a mark of 23.08 to place 7th in the event. In con­trast, his, 22.81 re­sult here would have placed 4th over­all there in Bu­dapest.

Thomp­son 13th in

women’s 50m freestyle

Fel­low swim­mer Cherelle Thomp­son end­ed 13th best over­all in the women’s 50m freestyle.

This is af­ter the 29-year-old Thomp­son, swim­ming from lane one in semi­fi­nal two, got home in 25.70 sec­onds, for the sixth spot, ahead of fel­low Caribbean swim­mers Bermu­da Mad­dy Moore (25.72) and Ja­maican, Macken­zie Headley (25.97).

The Aus­tralian duo of Shay­na Jack (24.33) and Meg Har­ris (24.41) took the top two spots in the semi­fi­nal and were joined in the fi­nal by South Africa’s Em­ma Che­lius (24.94), and Eng­land’s Is­abel­la Hind­ley (25.36), while Cyprus’ An­na Had­jiloizou (25.56) was fifth and a re­serve for the fi­nal.

The qual­i­fiers from semi­fi­nal one were Aus­tralian favourite Em­ma McK­eon in 24.51, Eng­land’s An­na Hop­kin (24.66), North­ern Ire­land’s Danielle Hill (25.15), and South African Erin Gal­lagher (25.31) with her coun­try­woman Olivia Nel, fifth in 25.38 to be a re­serve for the fi­nal as well.

Ear­li­er in the morn­ing ses­sion, Olympian Thomp­son was a sec­ond-place fin­ish­er in the sev­enth women’s 50m freestyle heat from lane three in 25.64 sec­onds to fin­ish be­hind Har­ris, who won in 24.57, while Moore (25.85), and Scot­land’s Evie Davis (26.01), who were third and fourth, re­spec­tive­ly, al­so qual­i­fied to the semi­fi­nals.

To­day, Carter will be keen to shake off the dis­ap­point­ment of miss­ing out on a medal in his pet event when he faces the start in heat four of the men’s 50m back­stroke event from lane sev­en against Ba­hami­an De­vante Carey, Jey Har­ry Sha­la­m­on, Wales’ Liam White, New Zealand’s An­drew Jef­f­coat, Cana­da’s Javier Aceve­do, Aus­tralian Bradley Wood­ward, and Cyprus So­fok­lis Mougis.

And Jeron Thomp­son will start from lane one in the sixth and fi­nal heat of the men’s 50m back­stroke swim against Scot­land’s Scott Gib­son, In­dia’s Sri­hari Nataraj, Aussie Mitchell Larkin, Sin­ga­pore’s Zheng Wen Quah, Sri Lankan Halpe­waththa­ga Dimuth Akalan­ka Pier, Scot­land’s Mar­tyn Wal­ton, and Bar­ba­di­an Jack Kir­by. The semi­fi­nals are card­ed for 2.12 pm and 2.17 pm.

New­man-Achee 26th in

All-Around Artis­tic Gym­nas­tics

In Women’s Artis­tic Gym­nas­tics, T&T’s An­nalise New­man-Achee was 26th best out of 30 com­peti­tors with a to­tal score of 38.750 in the Sub Di­vi­sion Two All Round event af­ter she tal­lied scores of 12.750 for 40th on the Vault, 5.300 for 34th on the Un­even Bars, 9.450 on the Bal­ance Beam, and 11.250 for 26th on Floor Ex­er­cise.

3x3 bball men suf­fer

back-to-back de­feats

T&T men’s 3x3 bas­ket­ball team of Steven Lewis, Kem­rick Julien, Adri­an Joseph, and Shel­don Williams were beat­en by a sim­i­lar 21-6 mar­gin in both their match­es against Eng­land and Aus­tralia in Pool B at the Smith­field Are­na in Birm­ing­ham.

First up, against the Aussies, Julien scored three points for T&T while Joseph got two and Lewis, one while for the win­ners’ Daniel John­son had a match-high 11 points, and Jesse Wagstaff added eight while Greh Hire and Tom Wright scored one each.

And ver­sus Eng­land, Joseph led T&T with three points while Steven Lewis added two and Kem­rick Julien, one, while Myles Hes­son top-scored with nine, and the pair of Jamell An­der­son, and Or­lan Jack­man got five each for the hosts.

To­day, T&T will re­turn to ac­tion against New Zealand from 2.30 pm with the lat­ter com­ing off an 11-21 loss to the Aussies in yes­ter­day’s late match.

Al­so to­day, in women’s beach vol­ley­ball from 4 pm, the T&T pair­ing of Phyle­cia Arm­strong and Suraya Chase in their women’s Pool B open­er against Mano­li­na Kon­stan­ti­nou and Zoi Kon­stan­topoulou.

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.

Box­er, Nigel Paul steps in­to the ring in the Su­per Heavy­weight (over 92kg) against Jean Christophe Stephan Otendy of Mau­ri­tius at the Num­ber 5 Hall 4 in their round-of-16 bout

The Ca­lyp­so Girls will look to re­bound from their lop­sided 22-74 open­ing loss to Eng­land on Fri­day when they face Ugan­da from 1 pm in their sec­ond Pool B match on Sun­day. The Ugan­dans went un­der to New Zealand 40-53 in their first match on Sat­ur­day.

T&T will come up against New Zealand on Tues­day, Au­gust 2; Malawi on Wednes­day, Au­gust 3, and North­ern Ire­land a day lat­er to end pool play.