Michelle-Lee Ahye did it, she cap­tured T&T’s fourth medal at the Pan Amer­i­can Games in Chile on Tues­day.

The 31-year-old sprint­er sped to the bronze medal in the women’s 100 me­tres fi­nal at the Na­tion­al Sta­di­um in San­ti­a­go.

Ahye, a for­mer Com­mon­wealth sprint cham­pi­on, clinched bronze in a time of 11.53 sec­onds when she crossed third be­hind win­ner Yu­nislei­dy Gar­cia of Cu­ba, who stopped the clock at 11.36 sec­onds hold­ing off Guyanese Jas­mine Abrams, who clocked 11.52 sec­onds.

T&T’s oth­er sprint fi­nal­ist Re­yare Thomas placed sixth with 11.69 sec­onds.

“I’m glad to add a medal for Team TTO. I hope they are hap­py with the colour. I’m def­i­nite­ly hap­py with what I got,” said a smil­ing Ahye, who raced out of lane two.

The day be­fore in the semi­fi­nals, she cruised in­to the medal race as an au­to­mat­ic qual­i­fi­er in the third and fi­nal heat, plac­ing sec­ond with 11.66 sec­onds, fol­low­ing two false starts.

“It was bet­ter than yes­ter­day. Yes­ter­day had a lot of dif­fi­cul­ties, it was much cold­er yes­ter­day but to­day I woke up with a pos­i­tive mind­set,” said Ahye “I was like to my­self I can do this, go out there and ex­e­cute, I did that and I got a bronze.”

Her com­pa­tri­ot Thomas was drawn in the out­er lane and be­hind the field but caught up some 30 me­tres to the line to fin­ish sixth, clock­ing the same time that she did In the semi­fi­nals on Mon­day, She had to fight for a tick­et in the fi­nal, fin­ish­ing out­side the two au­to­mat­ic qual­i­fy­ing spots in third place with 11.69.

“All I know is that I’m hap­py and that I fin­ished healthy,” said Thomas.

Al­so fin­ish­ing ahead of Thomas was Ana De Je­sus of Brazil (11.58) in fourth place with Li­ranyi Alon­so of the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic (11.63) fifth.

Fill­ing the re­main­ing spots were Yari­ma Gar­cia of Cu­ba (11.71) and Mex­i­can Ce­cil­ia Tamayo (11.75) in the sev­enth and eighth spots, re­spec­tive­ly.

T&T’s oth­er medals came cour­tesy of cy­clist Nicholas Paul, a gold in men’s sprint and a sil­ver in the keirin event, and the men’s 3x3 bas­ket­ball team of Mori­ba De Fre­itas, Chike Au­gus­tine and twin broth­ers Ah­keel and Ah­keem Boyd.

Wednes­day, Thomas will tack­le the women’s 200m dash. She will line up in lane eight against Tomayo, Cuban Enis Perez, De­Je­sus, Lan­i­ca Lock­er of An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, Martha Mendez of the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, and Ecuador’s Aimara Nazareno.

“My first goal in the 200 is to make it back to the fi­nal, then any­thing can hap­pen from there,” said Thomas.

<T&T stick­men face off with Mex­i­co>

T&T hock­ey men are still hunt­ing for their first win at San­ti­a­go 2023.

The lo­cal “Stick­men” will face Mex­i­co in the first round of the crossover stage in the fifth to eighth place clas­si­fi­ca­tion play­offs at the Hock­ey Sports Cen­tre in Nunoa on Tues­day at 12.30 pm (T&T time).

T&T, coached by Dar­ren Cowie, en­ter the clash with loss­es against the Unit­ed States (6-1), Brazil (2-1), and Cana­da (4-0), re­spec­tive­ly in the pre­lim­i­nary group stages, to fin­ish in fourth place with no points in group A.

The team im­proved af­ter each game but coach Cowie will be look­ing for more from them against the Mex­i­cans, who placed third in group A with three points, fol­low­ing a win against Pe­ru and de­feats to Ar­genti­na (10-1) and Chile (5-0).

With pres­sure still on their backs to get that open­ing win, Cowie will hope his team rec­ti­fies the mis­takes from the match­es in the pre­lim­i­nary round while it im­proves on its de­ci­sion-mak­ing in front of goal. Con­cerns will re­main over its penal­ty cor­ner con­ver­sion rate - two goals from 16 at­tempts.

In the oth­er clas­si­fi­ca­tion play­off match, the Brazil­ians meet Pe­ru.

Lat­er in the semi­fi­nals, un­beat­en Ar­genti­na, the top team out of group A, faces USA then the group B top team Cana­da, al­so un­de­feat­ed thus far in the com­pe­ti­tion, will be chal­lenged by the team from the host coun­try.

To­mor­row, the T&T women’s team will have the same goal, seek­ing out their first win. in the crossover stage. The lo­cal team will take on Cu­ba in match two of the clas­si­fi­ca­tion play­offs af­ter the match-up be­tween Uruguay and Mex­i­co.

In the women’s semi­fi­nals, Ar­genti­na will clash with Cana­da and Chile will be op­posed by the Unit­ed States.