Idrees As­cevero was the lone medal win­ner for T&T at the Pan Amer­i­can Sam­bo Cham­pi­onships in Cos­ta Ri­ca on the week­end when he de­feat­ed Brazil­ian Rafael De Oliveira in a 98+Kg Com­bat Sam­bo quar­ter­fi­nal round con­test.

How­ev­er, he went down to Jorge Mis­e­lem of Hon­duras in the semi­fi­nal round to bow out of the tour­na­ment. By virtue of mak­ing it to the semi­fi­nals, As­cevero earned a bronze medal.

He was among a three-man team that par­tic­i­pat­ed in the event, with Keron Bourne, a vet­er­an fight­er for T&T for the past 10 years, go­ing down to Daniel Fal­las of Cos­ta Ri­ca in the first round of a 64kg Com­bat Sam­bo con­test.

Ja­son Fras­er, pres­i­dent of the T&T Sam­bo Fed­er­a­tion said the team was not with­out its fair share of chal­lenges, from as ear­ly as not hav­ing coach and tech­ni­cal di­rec­tor War­ren Gill with them due to lack of fund­ing.

Fras­er, in high­light­ing the oth­er chal­lenges faced over the past few days, said: “The T&T Sam­bo and Com­bat Sam­bo Fed­er­a­tion was forced to cut its team down a day be­fore de­par­ture. Je­re­my ‘Ram­page’ Ro­dul­fo, the sam­bo bronze medal­list at the 2021 World Cham­pi­onships in Tashkent Uzbek­istan and Ty­rone Charles, were both un­able to trav­el with the team, al­though tick­ets were pro­vid­ed to the lo­cal sam­bo fed­er­a­tion by the In­ter­na­tion­al Sam­bo Fed­er­a­tion in Moscow Rus­sia.”