Cy­clist Michael Ac­k­ee bat­tled to the quar­ter­fi­nals rounds of the men's sprints at yes­ter­day's Ju­nior Pan Amer­i­can Games in Cali, Colom­bia, but he lat­er failed to ad­vance fur­ther af­ter be­ing beat­en by Colom­bia's Car­los Daniel Echev­er­ri Car­dona.

Ac­k­ee, on on­ly his first in­ter­na­tion­al event for the red, white and black, pro­duced the per­for­mance of his life in the fly­ing 200 me­tres, cour­tesy of a per­son­al best time of 9.685 sec­onds to qual­i­fy for the re­sult­ing match sprint events. His time earned him the ninth-fastest time in the sprints.

How­ev­er, in­ex­pe­ri­ence showed in a bat­tle with Ar­genti­na's Lu­cas Os­car Vi­lar in heat four of the open­ing round match-sprint event, the T&T rid­er be­ing beat­en in a pho­to-fin­ish.

Lat­er, how­ev­er, he re­turned to the repechage to hold off Da­iron Gar­cia Or­te­ga of Cu­ba and Ale­jan­dro Gomez Ramirez of Chile in a dash to the fin­ish line for his place in the quar­ter­fi­nals. How­ev­er, that too came to an end when Car­dona beat him in two straight rides to move on to the semi­fi­nals.

Ac­k­ee was, last night, set to com­pete in the match-sprint 5th-8th fi­nal.

Mean­while, coun­try­man Zion Puli­do failed to qual­i­fy for the match sprint with a slow 11.184 sec­onds that land­ed him in the 14th and last po­si­tion on the day.

Among the wome,n T&T's Sylese Chris­t­ian failed to fin­ish in the keirin event af­ter a crash in heat one that sent her be­fore med­ical of­fi­cials for hours. Coach Gre­go­ry Dan­drade con­firmed that his rid­er did not sus­tain any bro­ken bones but said she would be un­sure to con­test the match sprint to­day.

As Chris­t­ian went down, her heat was won by home­town favourite Mar­i­a­n­is Sanchez with Ar­genti­na's Valenti­na Lu­na and Abi­gail Car­aval of Cos­ta Ri­ca claim­ing the sec­ond and third po­si­tions, re­spec­tive­ly.

CA­NOE SPRINTS

Josi­ah Clarke earned an over­all sev­enth-place fin­ish in the men's 'B' Fi­nal of the 200m K1 Sprint at Lake Cal­i­ma.

He com­pet­ed all day, first pro­duc­ing a sev­enth-place fin­ish with a time of 35.75 in the morn­ing ses­sion that earned him a qual­i­fy­ing berth in the semi­fi­nals.

In the round of four, how­ev­er, he was not as fast as he was in the ear­li­er round but was still fast enough for a fi­nal spot with a time of 36.72 in the sixth po­si­tion. That race was won by Leonar­do Mat­tos of Brazil in 29.97.

In the fi­nal, Clarke bet­tered his time, know­ing he need­ed some­thing spe­cial for a top-three spot. But he could on­ly man­age the sev­enth spot with Cu­ba's Reinier Car­rera Mon­teagu­do clocked 31.10 for the win.

Jef­frey Per­al­ta of Guatemala was sec­ond in 31.57 while Samuel Gill of Colom­bia se­cured third in 31.81.

SWIM­MING:

Gabriel­la Don­ahue ad­vanced to the next round with a third-place fin­ish in heat two of the women's 200m freestyle at the Her­nan­do Botero O'Bryne Swim­ming Pool.

Don­ahue's 2:10.32 clock­ing was on­ly bet­tered by win­ner Jil­lian Crooks of the Cay­man Is­lands (2:08.74) and Guatemala's Daira Cabr­era in 2:09.90. Ear­li­er, her com­pa­tri­ot Or­nel­la Walk­er failed to im­press on the day, fin­ish­ing sixth in the 200-me­tre back­stroke in 2:32.57.

On Fri­day night, Gra­ham Cha­toor splashed to vic­to­ry in the B Fi­nal in the men's 400m freestyle, swim­ming a per­son­al best time of 4:01.39.

Cha­toor, a se­nior at the New York Uni­ver­si­ty and af­fli­at­ed to the Mar­lins Aquat­ics Club, led a one-two fin­ish by T&T ath­letes with com­pa­tri­ot Nikoli Black­man touch­ing the wall sec­ond in 4:08.87 to fin­ish ahead of Cuban Adri­an Navar­ro Foya with 04:09.22.

To­day, Don­ahue will race in the women's 100m freestyle and she will be joined by Or­nel­la Walk­er in the 100m back­stroke.

Among the men, Cha­toor, Black­man and Zarek William will line-up in the 100m freestyle. In the 800m freestyle both Cha­toor and Black­man will at­tempt to win their re­spec­tive heats and William in the 100m back­stroke.

BOX­ING

Box­er Juan Ro­driguez gave a more-than-bat­tling dis­play in the men's fly­weight con­test against Guatemala's Jose Daniel Fe­lipe Mi­jan­gos at the Luis Igna­cio Al­varez Are­na but lost in the end, as the ref­er­ee stopped the con­test in the fi­nal round.

Ro­driguez looked sol­id in the ear­li­er two rounds, con­nect­ing with the punch­es ever so of­ten while pro­duc­ing a se­cure de­fen­sive stance be­fore he be­gan to tire in the last round. In fact, the scores from two of the five judges showed Ro­driguez los­ing the fight 18-20 and 17-20, while the oth­er three judges ruled it 19-19 each.

Ro­driguez the lone qual­i­fi­er from T&T looked con­fi­dent at the start as he fend­ed off con­sis­tent jabs and punch­es from the Guatemalan. Up un­til the sec­ond round, the fight looked any­body's own un­til Ro­driguez drew de­fence­less and ab­sorbed clear-cut straight punch­es, al­though he tried to fight back.