Dis­cus throw­er Akeem Stew­art se­cured T&T's first medal at the Carif­ta Games, yes­ter­day in Mon­tego Bay, Ja­maica. This was at the Mon­tego Bay Sports Com­plex in Cather­ine Hall.The burly 18-year-old throw of 51.50 me­tres earned him sil­ver in the Boys Un­der-20 Dis­cus event in the morn­ing ses­sion on the open­ing day of the 40th edi­tion of the event."I am very hap­py about my per­for­mance," said a soft-spo­ken Stew­art. "It is the sec­ond time I am com­pet­ing at the Games and it feels good to get a sil­ver medal."He fin­ished be­hind Ja­maican Travis Smirkle, who tossed the dis­cus 62.84m. Third was Kel­lon Alex­is of Grena­da (50.60).In an­oth­er fi­nal in the ear­ly ses­sion of day one, T&T's Cherisse Mur­ray and Shaunna Downey placed fifth and sev­enth, re­spec­tive­ly in the Girls Un­der-20 Shot Put.Mur­ray's best at­tempt was her sec­ond at 12.69m, while Downey's fourth toss of 11.10m was her fur­thest.

It was a sim­i­lar faith for T&T's two high jumpers as nei­ther Meri­ah Free­man nor Ayan­na Glas­gow made it among the top three po­si­tions in the Girls U-17 event.Free­man gave a bet­ter show­ing though, leap­ing 1.65m to place fourth. Glas­gow was out ear­ly with a jump of 1.55m.T&T ath­letes showed promise in the Boys U-17 400m with Machel Ce­de­nio win­ning his pre­lim­i­nary heat and record­ing the fastest qual­i­fy­ing time of 48.80 sec­onds.Theon Lewis lined up in the sec­ond heat and ran sec­ond with a time of 49.11, to have the third fastest time over­all head­ing in­to the fi­nal which was sched­uled to run late yes­ter­day in the evening ses­sion.Kadisha Fran­cois, the lone lo­cal com­peti­tor in the Girls ver­sion of the race ran 1:00.19, to hold 13 spot, not good enough to ad­vance to the next round.

Both T&T quar­temil­ers Do­minique Williams and Chel­si Camp­bell pro­gressed to the Girls U-20 fi­nal as the fastest losers. Each fin­ished fourth in their re­spec­tive races with Williams clock­ing 56.27 in the first heat and Camp­bell get­ting in with a time of 57.22 in the oth­er.It was a good morn­ing for T&T's boys in the U-20 group with both De­on Lendore and Ja­reem Richards qual­i­fy­ing com­fort­ably for the one-lap fi­nale which was al­so slat­ed to run late yes­ter­day.Lendore cruised in­to the fi­nal af­ter plac­ing sec­ond in heat two with a time of 47.94 while Richards got in as the one of the fastest losers with 48.71.Fol­low­ing the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny which in­clud­ed a pa­rade of the par­tic­i­pat­ing coun­tries, T&T sprint­ers were to take to the track in their re­spec­tive 100m heats. Ay­o­dele Taffe and Jamol James were to con­test in the U-20, Michelle Lee Ahye and Bre­an­na Gomes in the U-20 Girls, Jonathon Far­in­ha and Nicholas Dou­glas in the U-17 boys and the for the girls, Za­kiya De­noon and Aaliyah Tele­ford.