Chef de Mis­sion Sta­cy San­tana has hailed the per­for­mance of T&T ath­letes thus far at the San­ti­a­go 2023 Pan Amer­i­can Games in Chile.

Some 13 days in­to the 19th edi­tion of the Games T&T has won three medals—a gold, a sil­ver, and a bronze.

The first was the bronze achieved last Mon­day in the high-en­er­gy, fast-paced men’s 3x3 bas­ket­ball com­pe­ti­tion.

“TTO’s bas­ket­ball 3x3 four­some of Mori­ba De Fre­itas, Chike Au­gus­tine, and broth­ers Ah­keel and Ah­keem Boyd se­cured TTO’s very first medal at the San­ti­a­go 2023 Pan Amer­i­can Games bring­ing home bronze with an im­pres­sive al­beit nail-bit­ing per­for­mance against our Venezue­lan coun­ter­parts,” said San­tana.

“I am so proud of these young men and very in­spired by their tremen­dous ef­forts and de­ter­mi­na­tion to ac­com­plish their goal of medalling at these Games.”

The quar­tet met Venezuela in the third-place match and thanks to a buzzer-beat­ing shot from Ah­keel, nick­named “Smal­ly”, T&T emerged with a nar­row one-point (21-20) win at the Span­ish Sta­di­um in Las Con­des.

Three days lat­er at the Velo­drome in Pe­nalolen, T&T ex­pe­ri­enced an­oth­er first at the Games, reach­ing the top of the podi­um, thanks to cy­clist Nicholas Paul. He won gold in the men’s sprint event, then the fol­low­ing day se­cured his sec­ond, a sil­ver, in the keirin fi­nal and this coun­try’s third medal at San­ti­a­go 2023.

“Nicholas Paul’s per­for­mance at the Games was al­so ex­cep­tion­al, win­ning gold in the men’s sprint and sil­ver in the men’s keirin,” said a pleased San­tana, who al­so recog­nised the ef­forts of the en­tire cy­cling team.

“Spe­cial men­tion goes out to cy­clist Alexi Cos­ta-Ramirez for her out­stand­ing ef­forts in the women’s om­ni­um. Alexi came very close to se­cur­ing an­oth­er bronze medal for T&T. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, young cy­clist Zion Puli­do pulled off a fan­tas­tic first ride in the men’s team sprint se­cur­ing the fastest first lap time of 17.611. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, the team did not qual­i­fy for the fi­nals.

“Well, wish­es to cy­clists Ak­il Camp­bell and Kwe­si Browne as we wish them a speedy re­cov­ery as they both suf­fered in­juries dur­ing their sin­gle events.”

On the fi­nal day of cy­cling, Fri­day, Camp­bell was seen with his right arm in a sling. He con­firmed that it was not bro­ken but swollen and was ad­vised to keep it in the sling as a pre­cau­tion.

Camp­bell fell dur­ing the sec­ond round of the men’s om­ni­um, the tem­po race, and could not con­tin­ue. Browne’s fall came in the men’s keirin event. He con­tin­ued in the com­pe­ti­tion but was elim­i­nat­ed in the repechage af­ter plac­ing sec­ond in his heat. Browne, along with Paul and Puli­do were mem­bers of the men’s sprint team which placed sixth in the qual­i­fi­ca­tion round and did not progress.

Cos­ta-Ramirez just missed out on a podi­um fin­ish af­ter plac­ing fourth in the women’s om­ni­um. She earned max­i­mum points (40) in the first ride, the scratch race, in the four-round event.

Sev­er­al ath­letes have com­plet­ed com­pe­ti­tions and have re­turned home. Though un­suc­cess­ful in their re­spec­tive events, San­tana al­so ac­knowl­edged their con­tri­bu­tions.

“Un­for­tu­nate­ly, gym­nast Jameel Ali (DNF), ten­nis play­er, Yolande Lea­cock, bad­minton duo Cheque­da De Boulet and Marc Re­ece Mar­cano, box­ers Nigel Paul, Aaron Prince, Al Jaleel Johku, Eyed An­gel George and Tiana Guy did not ad­vance in their re­spec­tive events, how­ev­er we are very proud of their valiant at­tempts, and we wish them all the best as they pre­pare for up­com­ing com­pe­ti­tions,” said the Chef de Mis­sion.

Swim­ming trio Nikoli Black­man, Zarek Wil­son, and Cherelle Thomp­son did not reach any medal races in their re­spec­tive events. Black­man, though, got in­to the B fi­nals in each of the three freestyle events he com­pet­ed in—the 200m, 100m, and 50m—but did fin­ish among the top three po­si­tions in any.

“Con­grat­u­la­tions to all our ath­letes who have com­pet­ed, thus far. Their ded­i­ca­tion and hard work are ev­i­dent, mak­ing them not on­ly a source of pride for T&T but al­so an in­spi­ra­tion to as­pir­ing ath­letes, said San­tana.

“We ea­ger­ly an­tic­i­pate the up­com­ing events in hock­ey, ta­ble ten­nis, golf, ca­noe sprint and ath­let­ics who have all safe­ly ar­rived in San­ti­a­go/Con­cep­cion with the ex­cep­tion of golf and one of our track and field ath­letes who are in tran­sit to Chile.”

The men’s and women’s hock­ey teams are cur­rent­ly in com­pe­ti­tions at San­ti­a­go 2023. To­day, the women’s team will take on pow­er­house Ar­genti­na in its fi­nal group stage match at 8.30 am T&T time while the men’s team will tack­le the clas­si­fi­ca­tion play­offs which starts on Wednes­day.

Al­so in ac­tion to­day for T&T is ta­ble ten­nis play­er Rheann Chung in the women’s sin­gles com­pe­ti­tion. She will meet Daniela Fon­se­ca in the round of 32 at 1.10 pm T&T time at the Olympic Train­ing Cen­tre in Nunoa.

Ath­let­ics be­gins this af­ter­noon and sprint­ers Michelle-Lee Ahye, Re­yare Thomas, and Jerod El­cock are sched­uled to face the starter in their re­spec­tive 100 me­tres semi­fi­nal heat.