Trinidad and Tobago junior archer Rondon Wilkinson has created history by winning this country's first gold medal at the Pan American Championships.
Rondon, 14, won the boys' Under-15 barebow final at this year’s Pan American Junior and Masters Championships in Medellín, Colombia, after an intense shootout with Nathan Lee of the United States of America.
The championship match was predicted to be a close one when, in the first set, both archers tied at 28 points to earn a set point each. In the fourth set, Wilkinson took a two-point lead, but in the fifth and final set, Lee won the points and tied the overall score at 5-5.
That result sent both athletes into a one-arrow shoot-out to decide the Pan American champion. The American was the first to shoot, landing an eight high to the right of the target face before Wilkinson shot and landed a nine to the left. With this medal, T&T moved into seventh place in the medal count.
Wilkinson said, "I feel a sense of accomplishment and I also feel a sense of pride in representing my country. It was my first international tournament and I was anxious but I had to overcome that anxiety."
T&T's position on the medal standings could have certainly improved had the pair of Rafael Young and Khadijah Rahamut not been narrowly edged out in the bronze medal match in the under-15 mixed recurve event.
Young and Rahamut defeated Chile's Alice Vaughan and Agustin Garcés 6-0 in the quarter-final round before losing by the same margin against the USA's Paige Lee and Anirduhkalyan Pinjala in the semi-final.
With a bronze medal still on the line, Rahamat and Young went under again, this time to Mexico's Eugenia Galindo and Victor Orozco.
In total, seven athletes represented T&T at the Junior Championships.
Arion Ayers and Young reached the under-15 boys' recurve quarterfinals after Young earlier defeated teammate Kristian Charles in the first round.
Zaynah Saiphoo reached the second round in the U-18 girls' recurve competition, and Samir Ramjattan did not progress beyond the first round in the under-21 men's compound category.
