Clydeen Mc­Don­ald

Led by a blis­ter­ing an­chor leg from new­ly crowned CAC 100 me­tres cham­pi­on Em­manuel Cal­len­der, T&T men's 4x100m re­lay team blazed to vic­to­ry at the 22nd Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean (CAC) Games Track and Field Cham­pi­onships in Ha­vana, Cu­ba, on Sat­ur­day.

Mi­nus the tal­ent­ed Richard Thomp­son and Marc Burn, two mem­bers of the team which took a sil­ver medal at the 2008 Bei­jing Olympic Games, the T&T team of Cal­len­der, Jovon Top­pin, Ron­dell Sor­ril­lo and Ke­ston Bled­man com­plet­ed their lap in 38.73 sec­onds. The Ja­maican team which in­clud­ed Lerone Clarke, who was sec­ond to Cal­len­der in the men's 100m gold medal run on Fri­day, fin­ished sec­ond in 39.31 sec­onds with the Ba­hamas third in 39.45 sec­onds.

T&T's Women's 4x100m re­lay team was al­so among the medals late on the sec­ond day of the Cham­pi­onships. The team of Sasha Springer, Re­yare Thomas, Se­moy Hack­ett and Ayan­na Hutchin­son be­gan the event as fa­vorites but the slow pass­ing of the ba­ton saw them reg­is­ter a time of 43.75 to fin­ish third. First place in the event went to the St Kitts & Nevis team which clocked 43.53 with Colom­bia sec­ond in 43.67, while Ja­maica fin­ish in fourth place with a time of 43.98.

Yes­ter­day, Sor­ril­lo the reign­ing na­tion­al 200 me­tres cham­pi­on se­cured his place in the fi­nal of the men's half lap Sprint. Run­ning in the fourth of four 200m heats Sor­ril­lo clocked a time of 20.85, the third fastest on the day. Cal­len­der, the 200m cham­pi­on at last year Cham­pi­onships did not qual­i­fy for the fi­nal af­ter fin­ish­ing ninth over­all in the pre­lim­i­nary round of the event with a time of 21.10 sec­onds. Hack­ett and Thomas al­so se­cured places in the fi­nal of the Women's 200m sprint. Hack­ett clocked 23.75 in the third of four heats while Thomas re­turned a time of 24.12 in the sec­ond heat.

Last night three of T&T ath­letes would have been in con­tention for medals in their events; they are Garvyn Nero, Je­hue Gor­don and Em­manuel May­ers. Nero, the na­tion­al cham­pi­on over 800m qual­i­fied for the fi­nal af­ter fin­ish­ing fifth in his heat in a time of one minute, 49.55 sec­onds. With Gor­don and May­ers qual­i­fy­ing for the fi­nal of the 400 Me­tres Hur­dles with times of 50.13 and 51.04 sec­onds re­spec­tive­ly.