Nigel Si­mon

Teenage T&T swim­mer Dy­lan Carter had this coun­try's best show­ing at the 2015 Pan Amer­i­can Games, Toron­to, Cana­da, thus far on Tues­day night when he placed fifth in the men's 100m freestyle A-Fi­nal at the Pan Am Aquat­ics Cen­tre.

Swim­ming from lane sev­en in the eight-man fi­nal, Carter who at­tends the Uni­ver­si­ty of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia touched the wall in 49.10 sec­onds to trail Ar­genti­na's Fed­eri­co Gra­bich (48.26), his school­mate and home­town swim­mer San­to Can­dorel­li (48.57), Brazil­ian Marc Chierigh­i­ni (48.80) and an­oth­er USC swim­mer, Venezue­lan Chris­t­ian Quin­tero (49.06).

The oth­er fin­ish­ers in the fi­nal were Cana­da's Yuri Kusil (49.26), Brazil's Matheus San­tana (49.58) and Suri­name's Ren­zo Tjon-A-Tjoe (49.60).

On Tues­day morn­ing when the heats took place, the 19-year-old Carter, a sil­ver medal win­ner in the men's 50m but­ter­fly at the 2013 FI­NA World Ju­nior Swim­ming Cham­pi­ons was third fastest in heat one in 49.29 sec­onds be­hind Con­dorel­li (48.88) and Kisil (49.07).

Gra­bich (48.60), Chierigh­i­ni (48.92) and Tjon-A-Tjoe (49.47) were the qual­i­fiers from heat two while Quin­tero (49.07) and San­tana (49.52) ad­vanced from heat three.

Miss­ing out on a spot in the fi­nal was USA's Cullen Jones, who at the Lon­don 2012 Olympic Games won gold in the 4x100m med­ley re­lay, sil­ver in the 50m freestyle and 4x100m freestyle re­lay.

Four years ear­li­er, he al­so won gold in the 4x100m freestyle re­lay at the Bei­jing 2008 Olympic Games, be­com­ing the first African-Amer­i­can man to win a gold medal in swim­ming at an Olympics (Bei­jing 2008), while in 2007 at the FI­NA World Aquat­ics Cham­pi­onships he won gold in 4x100m freestyle re­lay and was sec­ond in 50m freestyle.

To­day, (Thurs­day) Carter will be back in ac­tion in the 100m but­ter­fly heats while to­mor­row he joins Olympic and two-time World Cham­pi­onship bronze medal­list, George Bovell in the hunt for 50m freestyle glo­ry.

.....Women So­ca War­riors, Colom­bia in 1-1 draw

The na­tion­al women's foot­ball team made it two straight drawn re­sults from their round-robin group af­ter re­cent To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly "Sports­woman of the Year" award win­ner Ken­nya "Yaya" Cord­ner net­ted an 87th minute equalis­er against re­cent Fi­fa Women's World Cup par­tic­i­pants Colom­bia.

The Colom­bians who de­feat­ed one of the pre-Women World Cup favouites France, 2-0 at the tour­na­ment took a fourth minute lead through In­grid Vi­dal and dom­i­nat­ed pos­ses­sion for most of the match, but the Women So­ca War­riors nev­er dropped their heads and with three min­utes left, Cord­ner cap­i­tal­ized on a blun­der by goal­keep­er San­dra Sepul­ve­da to stab home the loose ball.

It was the sec­ond time late match hero­ics saved the T&T women, who got a last gasp goal from cap­tain Maylee At­tin-John­son in a 2-2 draw with Ar­genti­na in their group open­er on Sun­day at the same venue.

With the two points, T&T re­mained third on the four-team ta­ble, two be­hind Colom­bia which had a 1-0 win over Mex­i­co in its cur­tain rais­er. Mex­i­co is sec­ond af­ter whip­ping Ar­genti­na 3-1 in Tues­day's first match with a goal each from Tere­sa Noy­la, Nayeli Rangel and Jen­nifer Ruiz while Flo­ren­cia Banse­gun­do scored for the South Amer­i­cans, who have one point.

On Sun­day in the fi­nal round of Group A match­es, T&T goes up against Mex­i­co in a must win match and will be seek­ing to avenge a 1-0 Women's Gold Cup loss from 5.35pm while Ar­genti­na bat­tles Colom­bia at 8.35pm.

.......Williams and­With­field stum­ble

At the Chevro­let Beach Vol­ley­ball Cen­tre, top lo­cal men's beach vol­ley­ball pair,Daneil Williams and Fa­bi­en Whit­field came with­in two points of ex­tend­ing their match against Chilean broth­ers, Mar­cos and Es­te­ban Gri­malt to three sets, be­fore falling 11-21, 20-22 to drop to 0-2 in the four-team pool.

Hav­ing gone un­der to Norce­ca Tour ri­vals, Puer­to Ri­cans, Rober­to Ro­driguez and Er­ick Had­dock, 12-21, 15-21 in 32 min­utes in their open­ing match on Mon­day, the To­co-born T&T play must now de­feat El Sal­vador's Car­los Es­co­bar and David Var­gas to­day at noon to have any chance of ad­vanc­ing to the knock­out phase.

And in the af­ter­noon ses­sion, lo­cal women's pair, Ayan­na Dyette and Ma­li­ka David­son al­so put up a very com­mend­able show­ing in los­ing top one of the all-time top Norce­ca Tour pairs in Mex­i­cans, Bib­iana Can­de­las and Martha Re­vuelta, 23-25, 7-21 in 34 min­utes.

It was the sec­ond loss in as many match­es for Dyette and David­son who were beat­en by Ar­gen­tines Ana

Gal­lay and Georgina Klug 11-21, 13-21 in their Pool D open­er in 38 min­utes on Tues­day.

Up next for the T&T women from 4.30 pm to­day is top Cuban pair, Lin­ma Flo­res and Leila Mar­tinez.

......Sailor Ar­rindell­bags 38 points

At the Roy­al Cana­di­an Yacht Club, T&T's 18-year-old Kel­ly Ar­rindell was third, sev­enth and sev­enth in the women's laser fifth, sixth and sev­enth races re­spec­tive­ly for sev­enth spot over­all with 38 net points, 11 out of a medal place.

Olympian An­drew Lewis stayed in the hunt for a top three fin­ish as he end­ed eighth, sev­enth and sev­enth in his three races on the day in the men's laser class for 38 net points, and sev­enth spot over­all as well, 12 out of a medal spot.

Both men and women events were sched­uled to have race eight yes­ter­day, but re­sults were not avail­able up to pres time while races nine and ten are card­ed for to­day from 11.35 and 1.35 pm re­spec­tive­ly.

To­day at the Pan Am Fields, the na­tion­al men's hock­ey team will be hop­ing to bounce back from their 11-0 maul­ing from pow­er­house Ar­genti­na when they tack­le Cu­ba from 9 am in Pool A, a re­match of their Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean (CAC) Games fi­nal, Cu­ba won 5-1 last No­vem­ber in Guadala­jara, Mex­i­co.

In their open­er, Cu­ba bat­tled to an en­ter­tain­ing 3-3 draw with USA, T&T's fi­nal round-robin op­po­nent on Sat­ur­day from 11 am at the end of which the quar­ter­fi­nals will take place.

Al­so to­day, T&T golfers Sachin Hu­mar and Tal­in Ra­jen­dranath will com­pete in round one of men's com­pe­ti­tion from 8 am while women's pair Moni­fa Sealy and Christi­na Fer­reira tee off at 10.12 am.