It was a day of con­tin­ued good per­for­mances and more medals for T&T at the Com­mon­wealth Games in Birm­ing­ham, Eng­land on Sunday that led to a gold and a sil­ver medal, as well as a missed chance in the javelin.  

Jereem Richards re­turned to the tracks to help guide the T&T 4x400 me­tres re­lay team to the gold medal in the fi­nal while the coun­try’s 4x100m re­lay team went faster than they did in the qual­i­fiers the day be­fore, to se­cure the sil­ver medal.

On­ly a day af­ter Richards sprint­ed to a new Games record for the gold medal in the 200m fi­nal on Sat­ur­day, the 28-year-old came back to boost the 4x4 re­lay team and it worked in styl­ish fash­ion.

Richards, the an­chor, had on­ly to sprint past the fin­ish line in a quick time of 3:01.29, af­ter Dwight St Hillaire was out of the blocks in a flash and opened up a de­cent lead from Asa Gue­vara on the sec­ond leg.

It was a day when all run­ners worked to­geth­er in uni­son. Gue­vara con­tin­ued the ad­van­tage he re­ceived and main­tained it to Machel Ce­de­nio, who ac­cus­tomed to be­ing pres­sured on the third leg, staved off the chal­lenges to hand over to Richards to car­ry it home.

Af­ter the race, Richards and his team­mates im­me­di­ate­ly paid trib­ute to De­on Lendore, an­oth­er T&T 400-me­tre run­ner who died in a ve­hic­u­lar ac­ci­dent in Jan­u­ary.

“De­on would have been proud of this 4x400 team to see where we came from to where we are now, Com­mon­wealth Games cham­pi­ons, so that’s some­thing we will be proud about and I am re­al­ly proud of this team for the ex­e­cu­tion.

“To­day the plan was just to put me on the last leg to see how well I can fin­ish. Every­one did their job ex­cep­tion­al­ly, Asa might as well take me off the sec­ond leg with that leg he put down there to­day.

“Dwight did his job by giv­ing us a lead from the start, Asa ex­tend­ed that lead and Machel did well by open­ing up on that lead for me so. When I got the ba­ton it had no wrong for me to do, just to fin­ish strong,” Richards said.

Botswana’s team of Le­un­go Scotch, Zibane Ngozi, An­tho­ny Pe­sela and Bayapo Ndori took the run­ner-up sil­ver medal in 3:01.85 while Kenya’s four­some of (Wise­man Were Mukhobe, Mike Mokam­ba Nyan­gau, William Rayian and Boni­face On­tun­ga Mw­ere­sa) se­cured the bronze in a new sea­son’s best time of 3:02.41.

Ear­li­er yes­ter­day, a ren­di­tion of the na­tion­al an­them on the steel­pan was well re­ceived up­on a re­quest by Richards, which proved to be an in­spi­ra­tion for the coun­try’s 4x100 me­tres men, who pro­duced an­oth­er sea­son’s best time of 38.70 for the sil­ver medal in the fi­nal yes­ter­day morn­ing (TT time).

On­ly the day be­fore, the team of Jerod El­cock, Er­ic Har­ri­son Jr, Kion Ben­jamin and Akani His­lop, sprint­ed to a sea­son’s best (sb) 38.84 for the sec­ond-place fin­ish in heat one for an au­to­mat­ic place in yes­ter­day’s fi­nal, but be­fore the start yes­ter­day, Kyle Greaux, a 200m fi­nal­ist at the 2019 World Cham­pi­onships, came in as a re­place­ment for His­lop on the fi­nal leg and it worked to telling ef­fect, as the quar­tet record­ed a new sea­son’s best time.

El­cock, as he did in the pre­lim­i­nary heats, again led off the T&T team and Greaux brought home the ba­ton, but they had to set­tle for the sil­ver medal, just be­hind Eng­land’s win­ning team of Jona Efoloko, Zhar­nel Hugh­es, who al­so came in as a re­place­ment for Har­ry Aikines-Ary­eetey on the sec­ond leg, Netha­neel Mitchell-Blake and Ojie Edobu­run which turned in a new sea­son’s best time of 38.35 for the gold medal, prov­ing to be un­stop­pable on the day.

The day be­fore the Eng­lish de­liv­ered a time of 38.48 sb, but with Hugh­es in the team, he pushed them to new heights. Mean­while, Nige­ria’s four­some of Udo­di Chu­di On­wuzurike, Favour Oghene Tejiri Ashe, Al­a­ba Olukun­le Ak­in­to­la and Ray­mond Ekev­wo sped past the fin­ish in 38.81 sec­onds to seal the third-place fin­ish and bronze medal in the fi­nal.

Fourth went to re­gion­al neigh­bours Guyana (Akeem Stew­art, Em­manuel Archibald, Ar­inze Chance and Boelex Hold­er) hand­ing in a time of 40.05, fifth St Lu­cia (Michael Joseph, De­lan Ed­win, Lenyn Kish Leonce and Stephan Charles) 40.17, sixth Gam­bia (Sen­gan Jobe, Alieu Joof, Ebrahi­ma Ca­ma­ra and Adama Jam­meh) in 40.18 while sev­enth was Sin­ga­pore’s quar­tet of Marc Bri­an Louis, Joshua Han­wei Chua, Xan­der Ann Heng Ho and Ian Koe in 40.24. Kenya’s team of (Samwel Bitonyake Imeta, Dan Kivi­asi Asam­ba, Mike Mokam­ba Nyan­gau and Fer­di­nand Omanyala) did not fin­ish the race.

The coun­try’s women’s team of Khal­i­fa St Fort, Michelle-Lee Ahye, Mauri­cia Pri­eto and Leah Bertrand on the oth­er hand was not as for­tu­nate in the sprint re­lays, they fin­ished in the sixth po­si­tion in 43.86, clock­ing a much slow­er time than they did be­fore in heat two of the pre­lim­i­nar­ies (43.48).

Nige­ria’s team of To­bi Amu­san, Favour Ofili, Rose­mary Chuk­wu­ma and Nzubechi Grace Nwokocha sealed the win and the re­sult­ing gold medal in a per­son­al best time of 42.10, with Eng­land (Asha Philip, Imani Lan­siquot, Bian­ca Williams and Daryll Nei­ta) in a sea­son’s best 42.41 for the sil­ver medal.

Ja­maica, on the oth­er hand, added the dou­ble gold medal­list for the 100 and 200 me­tres Elaine Thomp­son-Her­ah to their team of (Kem­ba Nel­son, Na­tal­li­ah Whyte and Re­mona Burchell) for the bronze medal in 43.08. 

Wal­cott 4th in men’s javelin

Mean­while, Keshorn Wal­cott failed to pro­duce the goods in the fi­nal, as his best throw of 82.61 which came on his first at­tempt, proved in­suf­fi­cient to stop the even­tu­al win­ner Ar­shad Nadeem from Pak­istan from clinch­ing the gold medal with a new games record and per­son­al best throw of 90.18 me­tres.

From his six at­tempts, Wal­cott, the 2012 Olympic gold medal­list, failed to build on his first throw, de­liv­er­ing an 80.70 on his sec­ond, 79.22 on his third and fourth at­tempts, and 82.33 on his fifth. And any ef­fort at a re­demp­tion on his fi­nal throw, fell flat as he fouled that at­tempt.

Fol­low­ing the Pak­istani on the podi­um was Grena­di­an An­der­son Pe­ters, who re­leased the rod a dis­tance of 88.64 for the sil­ver medal, while Kenya’s sea­son’s best 85.70 earned him the bronze medal.

Git­tens places 11th in women’s long jump

T&T’s Tyra Git­tens al­so strug­gled on the day, fin­ish­ing 11th in the fi­nal of the women’s long jump in 6.27. Like Wal­cott, she achieved her longest dis­tance in her first jump.

There­after, she could not im­prove in the three at­tempts re­quired to medal. In her sec­ond jump, Git­tens land­ed a dis­tance of 6.17 me­tres and her fi­nal ef­fort was even short­er at 6.03.

Nige­ria’s Ese Brume pro­duced a games record of 7.00 for the gold medal. She was fol­lowed in­to sec­ond by Aus­tralian Brooke Buschkuehl with a jump of 6.95 while Deb­o­rah Ac­quah of Ghana took the bronze with her best at­tempt of 6.94.

Daniel fin­ish­es ninth in men’s triple jump

Kelsey Daniel was ninth in the men’s triple jump fi­nal. He de­liv­ered a dis­tance of 15.93m on his first jump but then gave him­self more hope on the sec­ond jump with 15.95 me­tres. With ex­pec­ta­tions of go­ing even fur­ther on his third and fi­nal jump, Daniel lept to 15.72 to set­tle for ninth.

The event was won by In­dia’s Paul El­d­hose with a dis­tance of 17.03 with his coun­try­man Ab­dul­la Aboobacker Narangolin­te­v­id tak­ing the sil­ver with his jump of 17.02 and Bermu­da’s Jah-Nhai Per­inchief se­cur­ing the bronze in 16.92.

Camp­bell bat­tles to sixth spot in women’s road race

Te­niel Camp­bell bat­tled to a sixth-place fin­ish in the women’s road race. She pro­duced an av­er­age speed of 40.785 to cross the fin­ish line in a time of 2:44.46. That event was won by Aus­tralian Geor­gia Bak­er, claim­ing the top spot in a mad rush to the fin­ish line in sim­i­lar fig­ures, while Scot­land’s Neah Evans took the sil­ver medal and Aus­tralia’s Sarah Roy, the bronze medal.

Af­ter the race Camp­bell, the first fe­male T&T rid­er to have qual­i­fied for an Olympic Games took to so­cial me­dia to ex­press how she felt.

“Try­ing to keep my tears back and hold my head high. (Just need a cou­ple more hours and I’ll be al­right). I re­al­ly, re­al­ly, re­al­ly want­ed to de­liv­er/rep­re­sent for the en­tire Caribbean re­gion to give us some­thing to cel­e­brate. I just knew how much that would have meant to every­one as well as how much hope it would have giv­en our rid­ers to con­tin­ue chas­ing their crazy cy­cling dreams de­spite all odds,” said Camp­bell via Face­book yes­ter­day.

“To­day was an op­por­tu­ni­ty lost in the fi­nal me­ters of the road race. Had to gam­ble with coun­tries that had trained and go all in with my de­ci­sion that hap­pen to con­stant­ly be chang­ing, as I was un­sure.

“Should have bet on my­self and lead me out, but that ex­tra bit of con­fi­dence just wasn’t there to do it with­out con­stant­ly over­think­ing.”

She added: “In a mat­ter of sec­onds, a podi­um was gone once I got boxed in. Tried to get out and hoped, but just kept get­ting hooked in every at­tempt made. Even at one point, it felt like maybe I just didn’t have that ‘zap in the legs’. Guess I need to get more ex­plo­sive and faster. Well played and de­served by the Aus­tralians.

“My re­sults hurt every­thing, down to my soul but as every­one says ‘this is bike rac­ing, more op­por­tu­ni­ties will come’. Just got­ta wait an­oth­er four years.”