NIGEL SI­MON

nigel.si­mon@guardian.co.tt

T&T swim­mer Dy­lan Carter had to set­tle for a fourth-placed fin­ish for the third time in a row at a ma­jor in­ter­na­tion­al meet when he just missed out on a medal in the men’s 50m freestyle fi­nal of the 22nd Com­mon­wealth Games (CG) at the Sandwell Aquat­ic Cen­tre in Birm­ing­ham, Eng­land on Wednes­day.

Fourth in the men’s but­ter­fly fi­nal at the 19th FI­NA Long Course World Cham­pi­onships in Bu­dapest, Hun­gary in June and fourth in the same event in Eng­land on Sat­ur­day in Birm­ing­ham, the 26-year-old Carter, swim­ming out of lane two raced home in 22.10, well off his per­son­al best of 21.91 he clocked at the Worlds to trail Eng­lish duo, Ben­jamin Proud who won in 21.36 and Lewis Ed­wards Bur­ras who got sil­ver in 21.68 while Cana­da’s Joshua Ed­wards edged bronze in 22.02.

Sin­ga­pore’s Tzen Wei Teong was fifth in 22.26 fol­lowed by Aus­tralia Tom Nowakows­ki (22.37), Ba­hami­an Lamar Tay­lor (22.51) and Aus­tralian Grayson Bell (22.53).

On Tues­day, Carter com­pet­ing in lane five in the first of two semi­fi­nals, touched the wall in 22.35 sec­onds for the sec­ond spot, be­hind Nowakows­ki who won in 22.20 while Wei Teong qual­i­fied in third with a time of 22.36.

The qual­i­fiers to the fi­nal from semi­fi­nal two were Proud who won in 21.63 fol­lowed by Ed­wards and Bur­ras, who both touched in 21.92, Tay­lor (22.45), and Bell, in 22.55.

In the heats, Carter was a sec­ond-placed fin­ish­er in heat nine with the fourth fastest over­all of 22.48 to fin­ish be­hind Bur­ras (22.09).

Last Sat­ur­day, Carter had to set­tle for the fourth spot in the men’s 50m but­ter­fly fi­nal, fin­ish­ing just off the medal podi­um by 0.01 hun­dredths of a sec­ond with a 23.28 sec­onds tim­ing.

His time was well off the 22.85 he swam for a sim­i­lar fourth place fin­ish at the FI­NA Worlds in Hun­gary, a time which stands as his per­son­al best opt­ed out of the semi­fi­nals, with his spot go­ing to Jer­sey Har­ry Sha­la­m­on (25.93), who was sev­enth in the same heat four, while Cyprus’ So­fok­lis Mougis touched in 26.40 for the eighth spot.

Wood beat­en in Ju­do bronze medal con­test

Lo­cal women’s Ju­do­ka Gabriel­la Wood came up one win short in her quest for a medal in the women’s 78 kg af­ter she was beat­en in 56 sec­onds by Aus­tralian Abi­gail Pa­duch in their bronze medal clash, trail­ing 10-0 when ref­er­ee Ioana Babi­uc of Ro­ma­nia stopped the con­test in­side 56 sec­onds.

Ear­li­er on, the 24-year-old Wood start­ed her medal with a loss in the women’s 78 kg quar­ter­fi­nal against New Zealand’s Syd­nee An­drews 10-0 with the ref­er­ee stop­ping the fight af­ter 71 sec­onds at Coven­try Are­na Ju­do Mat Two.

How­ev­er, in the repechage, open­ing round Wood de­feat­ed Tra­cy Durhone of Mau­ri­tius 10-3 five min­utes and 40 sec­onds in­to their con­test to set up a fight with Pa­duch.

Ahye re­lin­quish­es sprint crown

T&T’s Michelle-Lee Ahye, 30, re­lin­quished her hold on the women’s 100m sprint crown af­ter he placed third in semi­fi­nal two of three in 11.29 sec­onds, to fin­ish be­hind Ja­maica Olympic cham­pi­on Elaine Thomp­son-Her­ah who won in 11.05, while New Zealand’s Zoe Hobbs took the sec­ond au­to­mat­ic spot in 11.15.

In semi­fi­nal one, St Lu­cian Julien Al­fred won in 11.04 and was joined in the gold medal sprint by Niger­ian Nzubechi Grace Nwokocha (11.06) while in semi­fi­nal three, Eng­land’s Daryll Nei­ta stormed to vic­to­ry in a per­son­al best of 10.90 and was joined in the fi­nal by Niger­ian Rose­mary Chuk­wu­ma (11.05) and the pair of Ba­hami­an Ty­nia Gaither and Ja­maican Na­tal­li­ah Whyte, who both clocked 11.17 to qual­i­fy as the two fastest losers.

On Tues­day in the heats, Ahye stormed to vic­to­ry in heat five in 11.14 sec­onds the sixth fastest time over­all in the heats, fol­lowed by Ba­hami­an Ty­nia Gaither (11.19), and Joy Chi­nenye Udo Gabriel (11.43), a sea­son-best while Khal­i­fa St Fort was fourth in heat three from lane three in 11.49 and failed to ad­vance as the 23rd fastest, just one spot shy of Wales’ Han­nah Brier (11.48).

In her heat, St Fort fin­ished be­hind the three qual­i­fiers from her heat, Eng­land’s Daryll Nei­ta (11.02), Aus­tralian Bree Mas­ters (11.41) and An­tiguan Joel­la Lloyd (11.42) while in heat sev­en, Leah Bertrand was a non-starter.

The semi­fi­nals are sched­uled for Wednes­day from 2.35 pm, 2.43 pm, and 2.51 pm from which the top two fin­ish­ers and the two fastest losers over­all will qual­i­fy for the fi­nal at 4.45 pm.

T&T’s Nigel Paul and coach Rawlson Dopwell

Courtesy TTOC

100m men trio bow out at semis

In the men’s 100m semi­fi­nal the lo­cal trio of Er­ic Har­ri­son Jr, Jerod El­cock and Kion Ben­jamin all failed to ad­vance from their re­spec­tive semi­fi­nals.

The 23-year-old Har­ri­son Jr was sev­enth in the semi­fi­nal one of three in 10.44 sec­onds for a sev­enth spot fin­ish from lane two well adrift of South African Akani Sim­bine who won in 10.07 and was joined in the fi­nal by Aus­tralian Ro­hand Brown­ing, who crossed the line in 10.17.

They were fol­lowed by Eng­land’s Ojie Edobu­run (10.30), British Vir­gin Is­lands Rikkoi Brath­waite (10.31), Ja­maican Con­roy Jones (10.33) and Guyana’s Emanuel Archibald (10.43) while An­tigua & Bar­bu­da’s Ca­jhae Greene (10.45) and

Niger­ian God­son Oghene­brume (10.52) were eighth and ninth re­spec­tive­ly.

In heat semi­fi­nal two, 24-year-old El­cock end­ed in the sixth po­si­tion in 10.38 to trail Kenya’s Fer­di­nand Omanyala (10.02) and Cameroon’s Em­manuel Es­eme (10.14) who both ad­vanced to the fi­nal, while Nige­ria’s Favour Oghene Tejiri Ashe was third in 10.24, Ja­maican Ke­mar Bai­ley-Cole (10.25) fourth and Ghana’s Sean Safo-Antwi fifth in 10.36 while the trio of Scot­land’s Adam Thomas (10.40), Aus­tralian Jake Do­ran (10.40) and St Kitts/Nevis’ Nadale Buntin (10.51) were sev­enth, eighth and ninth re­spec­tive­ly.

In the third and fi­nal semi­fi­nal heat, 21-year-old Ben­jamin fin­ished eighth of nine run­ners in 10.43 with Eng­land’s Netha­neel Mitchell-Blake tak­ing the top spot in 10.13 fol­lowed by the fel­low au­to­mat­ic qual­i­fi­er for the fi­nal, Wales’ Je­re­mi­ah Azu in a per­son­al best of 10.15 while Ghana’s Ben­jamin Aza­mati (10.18), and Sri Lankan, Yupun Abeykoon (10.20) qual­i­fied to the gold medal sprint as the two fastest losers.

Kenya’s Samwel Bitonyake Imeta was fifth across the line in 10.24 fol­lowed by Namib­ian Gilbert Hain­u­ca (10.29), and Niger­ian Ray­mond Ekev­wo (10.36) while St Lu­cian Stephan Charles was ninth in 10.53.

On Tues­day in the heats, El­cock breezed to vic­to­ry in heat ten of the 100m in 10.26 sec­onds and was joined in the semi­fi­nals by Guyana’s Emanuel Archibald (10.28), St Lu­cian Stephen Charles (10.29), and Ghana’s Sean Safo-Antwi (10.33), the lat­ter two, as fastest losers.

Ben­jamin was sec­ond in the men’s 100m heat six in 10.34 sec­onds to fin­ish be­hind Sri Lankan Yupun Abeykoon (10.06) while Niger­ian God­son Oke Oghene­brume qual­i­fied in third in 10.38, as one of the sev­en fastest losers.

In heat eight, Har­ri­son Jr qual­i­fied in the third spot at 10.37, al­so the fastest los­er time, be­hind Ja­maican Con­roy Jones who won in 10.28, with Scot­land’s Adam Thomas, sec­ond in 10.30.

Gue­vara in 400m semis, Wright in long jump fi­nal

In the men’s 400m round one, Asa Gue­vara was third in the sec­ond heat in 45.98 sec­onds to ad­vance as an au­to­mat­ic qual­i­fi­er with the sev­enth best over­all of all run­ners to to­mor­row’s semi­fi­nal heat three from 4.20 pm, be­hind heat win­ner, Ja­maican Nathon Allen, who won in 45.18, and Botswana’s Le­un­go Scotch, sec­ond in 45.75 while in heat one, T&T’s Che Lara was sixth in 47.51 sec­onds for 31st po­si­tion and did not qual­i­fy, and in heat six, Kashif King crossed in fourth spot and 34th over­all, in 48.08 and al­so did not qual­i­fy to the semi­fi­nals. The fi­nal is card­ed for Sun­day, from 5.45 pm.

Com­pet­ing in heat three of the men’s 800m, Nicholas Lan­deau crossed the line in the sev­enth spot in one minute, 53.69 sec­onds for the 19th best time over­all.

To­day, de­fend­ing cham­pi­on Jereem Richards starts his de­fence of his men’s 200m ti­tle in heat four from 7 am, af­ter Dwight St Hillaire com­petes in heat one from 6.15 am, while Kyle Greaux lines up in heat five from 7.17 am.

First in ac­tion will be Mauri­cia Pri­eto in the women’s 200m heat five from 5.57 am while Tyra Git­tens lines up in Group A of the women’s High Jump Qual­i­fy­ing Round from 6.05 am.

To­day, na­tion­al cham­pi­on, Andweuelle Wright will com­pete in the men’s Long Jump fi­nal from 2.42 pm af­ter he qual­i­fied on Tues­day as one of the 12 best per­form­ers with a leap of 7.58 me­tres on his first at­tempt.

His dis­tance was good enough for the eighth spot in the Qual­i­fy­ing Round Group A of ten com­peti­tors and the 12th and fi­nal qual­i­fi­er over­all ahead of coun­try­man Kelsey Daniel.

The top qual­i­fi­er and lone ath­lete to go above 8.00 me­tres was In­dia’s Sree­shankar Sree­shankar with 8.05 fol­lowed by Ba­hami­an Lequan Nairn (7.90), South African Jo­van Van Vu­uren (7.87), Ja­maican Shawn-D Thomp­son (7.85), Aus­tralian Hen­ry Frayne (7.85), Guyana’s Emanuel Archibald (7.83), Aussie Christo­pher Mitrevs­ki (7.76), In­dia’s Muhammed Anees Yahiya (7.68), Do­mini­ca’s Trista James (7.65), Turks & Caicos Ifeanyichuk­wu Otuonye (7.65) and Botswana’s Thape­lo Mon­ai­wa (7.65).

Jerod Elcock, right, of T&T competes in his men’s 100m heat during the athletics in the Alexander Stadium at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, England on Tuesday. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)

Alastair Grant

Ca­lyp­so Girls, beach vol­ley­ballers

At the NEC Are­na, T&T ‘Ca­lyp­so Girls’ net­ballers suf­fered an­oth­er em­bar­rass­ing de­feat, this time to Malawi, 30-70 to fall to a 0-4 record in Pool B.

Beat­en by Eng­land (22-74), Ugan­da (28-68) and New Zealand (24-80) in their pre­vi­ous three match­es, the ‘Ca­lyp­so Girls’ fell be­hind ear­ly against Malawi and at the end of the first 15-minute quar­ter trailed 8-17.

The scor­ing trend con­tin­ued in the sec­ond pe­ri­od with Malawi ex­tend­ing their cush­ion to 39-15 be­fore dom­i­nat­ing the third quar­ter 18-8, and the fi­nal pe­ri­od as well, 13-7.

For Malawi, start­ing goal shoot Mwai Kumwe­da was un­stop­pable with 27 goals from 28 at­tempts while her half-time re­place­ment Joyce Mvu­la added 22 from 26 at­tempts, and goal at­tack, Jane Chi­maliro got a per­fect 16, and Sin­di Sim­towe.

The ‘Ca­lyp­so Girl’ had a team-high 23 goals from 26 at­tempts from goal shoot Afeisha Noel, goal at­tack Tahi­rah Hollingsworth added five from nine at­tempts, and vet­er­an Joelisa Coop­er, two from four.

With the loss, T&T re­mained bot­tom of the six-team ta­ble with­out a point, the same North­ern Ire­land whom it faces from 2 pm to­day to end round-robin pool play.

Ping Pong trio blanked in sin­gles com­pe­ti­tion

The lo­cal ta­ble ten­nis trio of Cather­ine Spicer, Rheann Chung and Der­ron Dou­glas all suf­fered de­feats in all their re­spec­tive in­di­vid­ual women’s and men’s ta­ble ten­nis pool match­es at the NEC Ta­ble Ten­nis Court.

Five-time Caribbean women’s Sin­gles cham­pi­on, France-based Rheann Chung, 37, was swept aside by Eng­land’s Char­lotte Bard­s­ley 4-11, 9-11, 7-11, 8-11 in her Group Eight open­er be­fore putting a much stronger show­ing in a loss to Cyprus’ Fotei­ni Meletie 11-3, 9-11, 11-8, 11-5, 10-12, 10-12, 7-11

In Group One, 27-year-old Spicer was beat­en by Mau­ri­tius Nan­desh­wa­ree Jal­im 10-12, 3-11, 7-11, 7-11 and Wales’ An­na Hursey, 6-11, 1-11, 3-11, 1-11.

To­ba­go-born 18-year-old Dou­glas fell to Bangladeshi Mo­hutasin Ahmed Rid­dy 11-7, 7-11, 8-11, 9-11, 11-9, 9-11; Guyana’s Christo­pher Franklin 11-7, 9-11, 7-11, 11-3, 9-11, 3-11 and Pak­istani Fa­had Khawa­ja, 8-11, 11-13, 12-14, 9-11.

Paul con­tests Su­per Heavy­weight quar­ters

Box­er, Nigel Paul, 32, who won a bronze medal at the 2021 World Cham­pi­onship in Bel­grade last year will en­ter the ring on Thurs­day at 4.45 pm for his men’s su­per heavy­weight (over 92kg) quar­ter­fi­nal against Eng­land’s De­li­cious Orie, who had a first-round bye.

On Sun­day last, Paul made an im­pres­sive start to his cam­paign in the men’s Su­per Heavy­weight (over 92kg) against Jean Christophe Stephan Otendy of Mau­ri­tius win­ning his bout af­ter the ref­er­ee stopped the con­test with one minute, 38 sec­onds in the open­ing round at the Num­ber 5 Hall 4 in their round-of-16 bout.

Be­fore Paul’s bout, Tiana Guy steps in­to the ring for her women’s feath­er­weight (over 54 - 57 kg) quar­ter­fi­nal bout against Niger­ian Eliz­a­beth Os­ho­ba at 2 pm.

Al­so to­day, T&T will fea­ture in women’s beach vol­ley­ball, cy­cling and squash

In women’s beach vol­ley­ball, the lo­cal pair­ing of Phyle­cia Arm­strong and Suraya Chase, with a 0-2 record in Pool B af­ter suf­fer­ing de­feats to Aus­tralians Talique Clan­cy and Mari­afe Ar­ta­cho del So­lar as well as Mano­li­na Kon­stan­ti­nou and Zoi Kon­stan­topoulou of Cyprus, face fel­low win­less duo, Sri Lankans Deepi­ka Ban­dara and Chathuri­ka Weer­ans­inghe, from 4 pm.

The lo­cal pair of Char­lotte Knag­gs and Chayse Mc­Quan will con­test the squash Mixed Dou­bles round-of-32 against Cana­di­ans Hol­lie Naughton and Nick Sachvie from 7.30 am, while cy­clist Te­niel Camp­bell gets her first taste of road cy­cling com­pe­ti­tion in the women’s In­di­vid­ual Time Tri­al from 5 am.

T&T has so far won three medals at the games, all by cy­clist Nicholas Paul, a gold, sil­ver and bronze, to equal the medal haul of four years ago which was (two gold, one sil­ver) with sprint­ers, Ahye and Jereem Richards the gold medal win­ners and Carter, adding a sil­ver.

Paul, a for­mer Na­pari­ma Col­lege stu­dent has so far won all three medals for T&T, a gold in the keirin, sil­ver in the match sprint and bronze in the kilo­me­tre Time Tri­al and joined fel­low cy­clist Roger Gib­bon, 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.