T&T swim­mers, Dy­lan Carter and Nikoli Black­man both earned a sil­ver medal while the Match Sprint men’s cy­cling team added a bronze to car­ry this coun­try’s medal tal­ly to sev­en (two gold, two sil­ver, and three bronze) at the Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean (CAC) Games in San­to Domin­go, El Sal­vador, on Wednes­day.

Win­ner of the men’s 100m freestyle (48.49 sec­onds) and 50m but­ter­fly (23.32 sec­onds), both new Games record, the 27-year-old was seek­ing to add a third in the 50m back­stroke gold medal splash at the Mer­liot Aquat­ic Com­plex.

How­ev­er, Carter who led the 4x100 me­tres men’s freestyle re­lay quar­tet (Carter, Gra­ham Cha­toor, Black­man and Zarek Wil­son) to a bronze in three min­utes and 22.33 sec­onds, a new na­tion­al record, came up short in his bid for a sec­ond straight men’s 50m back­stroke ti­tle when he touched the wall in 25.55, well off his Games record 2018 mark of 25.01, to fin­ish be­hind Ba­hami­an Lamar Tay­lor, who won gold in 25.08.

Diego Ca­ma­cho of Mex­i­co com­plet­ed the trio of fin­ish­ers on the podi­um with a bronze medal splash of 25.68. The re­main­ing com­peti­tors in the fi­nal were Colom­bia’s Omar Pin­zon (25.90), US Vir­gin Is­lands Max­imil­lian Wil­son (26.09), Puer­to Ri­co’s Yeziel Morales (26.40), Colom­bia’s David Ce­s­pedes (26.43) and Bermu­dan Jack Har­vey in 26.70.

Carter ear­li­er in the morn­ing heats fin­ished third in heat one of three in 26.47, with Wil­son first in 26.13, and Pin­zon, sec­ond in 26.23.

Tay­lor topped the qual­i­fiers with a time of 25.47, ahead of Ca­ma­cho (25.98), while Morales al­so clocked 26.23, Ce­s­pedes (26.24), and Har­vey 26.57 to qual­i­fy from the two oth­er heats.

In the 200m freestyle A-fi­nal, Black­man who cel­e­brat­ed his 18th birth­day last Thurs­day, had a strong sec­ond half of the race to move from the fourth spot to end with a sil­ver medal in 1:50.41 sec­onds, his first in­di­vid­ual medal of the games, and well be­hind Mex­i­can Jorge Iga who re­tained his ti­tle with a 1:47.97 tim­ing, while his coun­try­man Hec­tor Ru­val­ca­ba got bronze in 1:50.92.

The oth­er fin­ish­ers in the race were Colom­bians, San­ti­a­go Corre­dor (1:51.41), and San­ti­a­go Artea­ga (1:53.98), Hon­duran Gabriel Mar­tinez (1:55.07), Pana­man­ian Isaac Beitia (1:55.77), and the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic’s Mauri­cio Arias, in 1:57.93.

Ear­li­er, in the morn­ing heats, Black­man was sec­ond in the third and fi­nal men’s 200m freestyle heat in one minute, 56.27 sec­onds, with Iga win­ning in 1:47.53 min­utes and earn­ing the top qual­i­fi­ca­tion spot.

The Colom­bian pair of Artea­ga (1:53.92), and Corre­dor (1:53.96) as well as Ru­val­ca­ba (1:55.30), and Beitia (1:56.10) all qual­i­fied ahead of Black­man, with Mar­tinez (1:56.85), and Arias (1:56.94), the sev­enth and eighth fastest, re­spec­tive­ly.

How­ev­er, in the men’s 100m but­ter­fly, Wil­son was an eighth-place fin­ish­er in 55.29.

Venezue­lan Jorge Otaiza won the gold medal in 53.37 with Colom­bian David Arias, sec­ond in 53.59 and Iga, third in 53.61.

Mex­i­co's As­canio Fer­nan­dez was fourth in 53.82 fol­lowed home by Colom­bia's Es­naider Reales in 54.11, Venezue­lan Emil Perez in 54.03 and St Lu­cian Jay­han Od­lum-Smith in the sev­enth spot in 55.03.

This af­ter Wil­son touched the wall in third spot in the sec­ond of three heats in 55.53 sec­onds, with Iga (53.52), and Fer­nan­dez (53.70) claim­ing the top two spots in the heat and fastest times over­all as well. The quin­tet of Otaiza (53.77), Reales (53.90), Arias (53.98), Perez (55.17), and Od­lum-Smith (55.36) were the oth­er qual­i­fiers.

On Thurs­day, Carter and Black­man com­pete in heat five of the men’s 50m freestyle while Cherelle Thomp­son dives in­to the pool in both the women’s 50m but­ter­fly and 50m freestyle in heats one and five, re­spec­tive­ly.

New­man-Achee fourth in women’s un­even bars

An­nalise New­man-Achee fol­lowed up her sixth po­si­tion in the Women’s All-Round Gym­nas­tics with a fourth place in the un­even bars fi­nal on Tues­day night.

Com­pet­ing in the eight-ath­lete fi­nal at the Mer­liot Sports Com­plex, New­man-Achee tal­lied 12.200 points, just shy of her 12.250 in the all-round event, to fin­ish be­hind gold medal win­ner, Pauli­na Cam­pos of Mex­i­co (13.400), Pana­ma’s Kar­la Navas (13.050), and Ja­maica’s Tye­sha Mat­tis (12.750)

Match Sprint men get bronze

T&T’s men’s team sprint trio of Nicholas Paul, Kwe­si Browne and Zion Puli­do failed to de­fend their ti­tle won five years ago when they had to set­tle for the bronze medal af­ter beat­ing Cu­ba in their ride off last night.

In the morn­ing ses­sion qual­i­fi­ca­tion, Mex­i­co clocked the fastest time of 1:00.443, over the course of the three laps to beat Colom­bia (1:02.183) in­to the sec­ond spot, while T&T was sur­pris­ing­ly third in 1:02.5999 while Cu­ba was fourth in 1:02.706, and El Sal­vador, fifth in 1:02.706.

How­ev­er, the T&T women’s team of Adri­an­na Sey­ja­gat, Phoebe Sandy, and Alexi Cos­ta-Ramirez was fifth in the women’s team sprint qual­i­fiers in 1:14.136 and failed to ad­vance to the medal round.

Mar­cano hat trick sets up 4-1 hock­ey men win

Eng­land-based Teague Mar­cano picked up from where he let off at the Pan Amer­i­can Hock­ey5s World Qual­i­fiers when he scored a hat-trick to lead the ‘Ca­lyp­so Stick­men to a 4-1 win over Guyana in their Group B cur­tain-rais­er at the Field Hock­ey Pavil­lion, in Par­que del Este in San­to Domin­go, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, yes­ter­day (Wednes­day).

Mar­cano scored in the 15th minute while his lo­cal club team­mate Jo­van Wren made it 2-0 in the 19th for a 2-0 half-time ad­van­tage.

Mar­cano ex­tend­ed the lead to 3-0 in the 31st minute, but An­drew Stew­art then re­duced the mar­gin for Guyana in the 36th be­fore Mar­cano com­plet­ed his hat-trick in the 41st.

In the oth­er Pool B match, Cu­ba al­so won by a 4-1 mar­gin against the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic while in Pool A, Mex­i­co blanked Ja­maica 3-0 and Bar­ba­dos crushed El Sal­vador 14-0.

On Thurs­day, the T&T women, 4-0 win­ners over Ja­maica in their Group A open­er on Tues­day re­turn to ac­tion against Mex­i­co from 4 pm be­fore end­ing pool play ver­sus Cu­ba on Sat­ur­day (Ju­ly 1) from 2 pm.

The Mex­i­cans drew their open­er against Cu­ba 2-2, while in Pool B match­es to­day, Bermu­da faces the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic from 10 am, fol­lowed by Puer­to Ri­co and Bar­ba­dos from 12 noon.

On Tues­day, Bar­ba­dos women edged Bermu­da 3-2 and the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic bat­tled past Puer­to Ri­co 2-1.

Ca­lyp­so Spik­ers face Puer­to Ri­co

T&T men’s vol­ley­ball team, three-time Caribbean cham­pi­ons will play their sec­ond match in Pool B against Puer­to Ri­co at the Sports Palace Car­los El Famoso Hernán­dez in San Sal­vador from 10.30 am on Thurs­day).

Last night, T&T opened its cam­paign against host El Sal­vador and will close out their round-robin se­ries ver­sus Guatemala on Fri­day.

The Guatemalans went un­der to Puer­to Ri­co 15-25, 18-25, 18-25 in their open­er last night.

Pool A will see Mex­i­co meet­ing Suri­name from 7 pm fol­lowed by Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic and Cu­ba at 10 pm.

On Wednes­day, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic beat Mex­i­co 25-17, 29-31, 25-20, 25-18 and Cu­ba out­played Suri­name 25-20, 25-12, 25-19 in the first two match­es in Pool A.

At the end of the round-robin se­ries on Thurs­day, the win­ners from each pool will ad­vance di­rect­ly in­to the tour­na­ment’s semi­fi­nals, while teams placed in sec­ond and third po­si­tions will con­test the cross-over quar­ter­fi­nals.