​Michelle Sturge and Gwen­dolyn Smith pro­duced gold medals to open Trinidad and To­ba­go’s cam­paign at the World Mas­ters Ath­let­ics Cham­pi­onships in Daegu, South Ko­rea, putting on dom­i­nant per­for­mances to cap­ture ti­tles in their re­spec­tive di­vi­sions and dis­ci­plines.

​Sturge sprint­ed to the top of the podi­um in the Women’s 55 (W55) 100-me­tre fi­nal.

She sig­nalled her in­tent ear­ly by blow­ing past the com­pe­ti­tion in the pre­lim­i­nar­ies with a blis­ter­ing 13.55 sec­onds, the fastest qual­i­fy­ing time across all heats. Re­turn­ing for Tues­day’s fi­nal, she blazed across the fin­ish line in 13.62 sec­onds to se­cure the world ti­tle, nar­row­ly edg­ing out Mex­i­co’s Mon­i­ca Jua­na Gar­cia Sanchez (13.65) and Jen­nifer Tjin Liep Shie of the Nether­lands (13.86).

​Sturge’s tri­umph built on an equal­ly re­mark­able vic­to­ry on Sun­day by throw­er Smith. Com­pet­ing in the W60 javelin throw, Smith put on a dis­play of pow­er and pre­ci­sion. She launched her win­ning throw to a mas­sive 38.19m, near­ly sev­en me­ters clear of her near­est com­peti­tor, Puer­to Ri­co’s Maria Del Car­men Gon­za­lez Morales (31.21m). South Africa’s Heleen Kno­bel took third with 30.77m.

​While Sturge and Smith col­lect­ed gold, Natasha Kelshall-Pan­tin put to­geth­er one of the most re­mark­able in­di­vid­ual se­ries of the cham­pi­onships in the W45 100m event. Mak­ing her World Mas­ters de­but, Kelshall-Pan­tin shat­tered her na­tion­al record in the open­ing heats. She took it a step fur­ther in Mon­day’s semi­fi­nals, dip­ping un­der the 13-sec­ond bar­ri­er for the first time in her ca­reer. Kelshall-Pan­tin re­peat­ed the feat in Tues­day’s fi­nal, clock­ing 12.99 to claim a hard-fought fifth place over­all, record­ing her three fastest ca­reer times in a sin­gle, his­toric tour­na­ment.

​Vet­er­an com­peti­tor Geral­dine George added to the na­tion’s medal haul on Mon­day with a strong per­for­mance in the field events, earn­ing a bronze medal in the W50 dis­cus throw with a top ef­fort of 34.51m. She re­turned to the venue on Tues­day for a busy dou­ble-du­ty cam­paign, nar­row­ly miss­ing out on fur­ther hard­ware by plac­ing fourth in both the shot put (11.78m) and javelin (32.92m).

In the Men’s 65 (M65) 100m, Ray­mond Smith au­to­mat­i­cal­ly qual­i­fied for Sun­day’s semi­fi­nals af­ter plac­ing sec­ond in heat four with a time of 13.48 sec­onds. He matched that ex­act time in the semi­fi­nals to fin­ish sev­enth and 11th, miss­ing a spot in the fi­nal. Mean­while, Mur­rien Mitchell opened ac­tion on Sat­ur­day by plac­ing third in his M50 100m heat in 12.20 to fin­ish 25th over­all, while Joan Hospedales placed sev­enth in her W60 100m heat on Mon­day to end up 26th over­all.

​No lo­cal ath­lete was in ac­tion on Wednes­day. Thurs­day, Dave Mas­si­ah (M70), John War­ren (M40), Mitchell (M50), and Ray­mond Smith (M65) will be on the track com­pet­ing in the 200m heats in their re­spec­tive cat­e­gories.

Up­com­ing sched­ule

Thurs­day

Dave Mas­si­ah - M70 200m

John War­ren - M40 200m

Mur­rien Mitchell - M50 200m

Ray­mond Smith - M65 200m

To­mor­row

Gwen­dolyn Smith - W60 shot put

Joan Hospedales - W60 200m

Robert Steven­son -M85 200m

Natasha Kelshall-Pan­tin W45 200m

Sat­ur­day

Anselm LeBourne - M65 1,500m

Gwen­dolyn Smith - W60 dis­cus

Michelle Sturge W55 200m

Sun­day

Dave Mas­si­ah M70 400m

Tues­day

Gwen­dolyn Smith W60 throws pen­tathlon (shot put, dis­cus, ham­mer, javelin, weight throw).

Robert Steven­son M85 400m