Jaidi James leaped to the silver medal in the men's high jump final at the Commonwealth Youth Games, yesterday, at the Hasely Crawford Stadium in Mucurapo, Port-of-Spain.
The local jumper won T&T's third track and field medal at Trinbago2023, adding to the silver won by Janae De Gannes in the women's long jump and bronze bagged by Sanaa Frederick in the women's 100 metres on Monday.
James cleared the bar at 2.00 metres to place second behind English jumper Ethan Carey Glyde with 2.06m and ahead of Nilupul Rathnaweera Patabendige of Sri Lanka with 2.00m.
Sole Frederick and Keeran Sriskandarajah will race for gold in their respective events, today.
Frederick will get her chance in the women's 200m after placing second in heat one of two with a 23.72-timing and advanced with the fourth-fastest time of the eight finalists. Finishing ahead of her in the first heat was Naomi London of St Lucia with 23.71. Current 100m silver medallist Nigerian Justina Eyakpobeyan (23.90) was also among the automatic qualifiers in the third spot. Fourth-placed Grace Krause (23.91) of Australia and fifth-placed Tianna Springer (24.39) of Guyana also qualified for today's final.
De Gannes after placing second in the women's long jump, the day before, faced the starter in the half-lap event and reached the semifinal stage but was eliminated just missing out on a spot in the medal race after placing ninth with a time of 24.46. She was fourth in the slower heat two behind automatic qualifiers, reigning CYG 100m women's champion and new record-holder Faith Okwose of Nigeria with 23.49, La'nica Locker of Antigua and Barbuda with 24.04 and Canadian Ashley Odiase (24.04).
Frederick and De Gannes emerged from the preliminary heats in the event as automatic qualifiers for the semifinals.
Frederick moved on with the second-fastest time of 24.08 seconds behind Okwose with 23.64. The T&T runner topped heat four, edging Eyakpobeyan (24.10), at the line. Eyakpobeyan advanced with the third-fastest time.
De Gannes was first to go through for T&T after placing third in the second heat with a time of 24.79 behind London (24.19) and Krause (24.40). Kelebonye Otela of Botswana, who placed fourth with 25.78, progressed as one of the fastest losers. De Gannes advanced with the ninth-fastest time of the 16 qualifiers.
Sriskandarajah will chase gold in the men's 800m final.
The T&T middle-distance runner progressed with the seventh-fastest time after placing fourth with a time of 1:53.85. He will compete against Kelvin Koech (1:50.38) of Kenya, Canadians Michael Hussey (1:52.27) and Noah Neves (1:54.66), Scotland's Caleb McLeod (1:53.38), England's Miles Waterworth (1:54.26), Ugandan Raymond Omara (1:54.59), and Isle of Man's Jack Kindrade (1:54.79).
T&T's Keneisha Shelbourne was a fifth-place finisher in the women's 400m hurdles event final. Shelbourne clocked 1:04.28 to follow to the line, English duo Stephanie Okoro, who broke the CYG record in winning the gold medal with 58.19 and Mia Walker, the silver medallist, with 1:00.52 along with bronze medallist Tumi Hope Ramokgopa of South Africa (1:00.63) and fourth-placed Shalani Don Arachchilage of Sri Lanka with 1:03.44. Okoro bettered the record held by Jamaican Jhonelle Thomas of 59.40 achieved in Nassau, Bahamas in 2017.
In the men's version of the race, Cheyne West was unfortunately a seventh-place finisher after tripping and falling over the final hurdle.
West, running in lane six, got out well and was in contention for most of the race and looked to be in fourth position going over the second-to-last hurdle. However, at the last hurdle, he clipped it and tumbled over, got up and crossed in a time of 54.87 to be seventh in a race won by Jamaican Daneil Wright in 51.51. In second place was Sri Lanka's Ayomal Kuda Liyanage with 51.61 and in third, Oliver Parker of England with 52.36.
Later, West faced the starter in the 110m hurdles but he again finished out of the medals, placing sixth with 13.82. Shaquane Gordon of Jamacia hurdled to gold with a record-breaking time of 13.16 bettering the previous record of 3.32 held by Andres Van Der Merwe in 2011 in Douglas, Isle of Man.
Gordon and Okoro's CYG records were one of three achieved on the day. The other was Ayesha Jones in the women's javelin with 52.49, surpassing the previous mark of Australian Annabel Thomson with 51.99 done in Bendigo, Australia in 2004.
