T&T’s Jereem ‘The Dream’ Richards led the 4x400 men’s re­lay quar­tet which in­clud­ed vet­er­an Ren­ny Quow, Che Lara and Machel Ce­de­nio to the gold medal on the penul­ti­mate night of com­pe­ti­tion at the 2023 Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean (CAC) Games on Fri­day night.

One night af­ter storm­ing to his gold medal in the men’s 400m fi­nal, Richards, the 2022 World In­door Cham­pi­onship 400m gold medal­list and his com­pa­tri­ots won gold com­fort­ably in a time of three min­utes, 01.99 sec­onds, ahead of Bar­ba­dos (Kyle Gayle, Rasheeme Grif­fith, Ri­val­do Lea­cock, and De­sean Boyce) who fin­ished in 3:02.12 min­utes, while the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic (Eze­quiel Suarez, Juan­der San­tos, Robert King, and Lidio Fe­liz) se­cured the bronze medal in 3:02.19.

The oth­er fin­ish­ers in the fi­nal were Venezuela in 3:03.00, Colom­bia in 3:10.17, and host El Sal­vador in 3:11.71.

Over­all, T&T end­ed with 19 medals (eight gold, sev­en sil­ver and four bronze) for the eighth spot on the medal ta­ble as the high­est-ranked Caribbean coun­try and Eng­lish-speak­ing na­tion with swim­mer Dy­lan Carter, se­cur­ing three in­di­vid­ual gold medals, all in new games record times, cy­clist Nicholas Paul (men’s spint), Keshorn Wal­cott (men’s javelin), and the 4x100m men re­lay quar­tet of Kion Ben­jamin, Devin Au­gus­tine, Car­lon Hosten, and Er­ic Har­ri­son Jr sprint­ing to gold as well.

T&T’s Kelsey Daniel just missed out on adding to this coun­try’s medal haul when he placed fourth in the men’s Triple Jump fi­nal with a best leap of 16.10 me­tres, on his fifth, and sixth at­tempts.

Cuban Lazaro Mar­tinez, won with a best ef­fort of 47.51, achieved on his fifth at­tempt, and a new games record as well, eras­ing the 2006 dis­tance of 17.46 set by his coun­try­man Yohan­dri Be­tan­zos in Colom­bia. An­oth­er Cuban, Cris­t­ian Napoles got sil­ver with a best of 17.11, and Venezuela’s Leo­dan Tor­re­al­ba, bronze with 16.41.

<Ja­maica tops Ca­lyp­so Girls 50-36 for gold>

T&T ‘Ca­lyp­so Girls’ had to set­tle for the sil­ver medal af­ter los­ing the women’s net­ball fi­nal to favourites Ja­maica, 36-50 at the Jose Adol­fo Pine­da Na­tion­al Gym­na­si­um on Fri­day night.

In a clash of un­beat­en teams, both with 5-0 win-loss records, Ja­maica held the edge of T&T at the end of the first quar­ter and led 12-10 which they ex­tend­ed to 23-16 by the half-time in­ter­val, af­ter a dom­i­nant 11-6 sec­ond pe­ri­od.

The Ja­maicans man­aged to ex­tend their lead to 11 in the third pe­ri­od to hold a 38-27 ad­van­tage at the start of the four quar­ter which they al­so won 12-9 for a 50-38 fi­nal score.

Lead­ing the way for the ‘Sun­shine Girls’ was Si­mone Gor­don with 41 goals from 43 at­tempts, while There­sa Robin­son added eight from 11, and Aman­da Pinkey, one from one.

For T&T, Afeisha Noel con­tin­ued her con­sis­tent form with 24 goals from 26 at­tempts, and vet­er­an Joelisa Coop­er con­vert­ed a per­fect 12 from 12.

<Richard sixth in men’s golf stroke play> 

T&T’s Christo­pher Richard end­ed in sixth spot in the men’s golf In­di­vid­ual Stroke Play Tour­na­ment with a four-day to­tal of five-over-par 293 at the El En­can­to Coun­try Club on Fri­day.

Through­out the com­pe­ti­tion, Richards shot scores of 72, 78, 71 and 72 to fin­ish nine shots be­hind Cos­ta Ri­ca’s Paul Chap­let, and Mex­i­co’s Jose Ro­driguez who both card­ed four-un­der-par 284.

Colom­bian Ri­car­do Celia was third with a score of 288 while Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic’s Rhadames Pe­na card­ed 290, and Pana­ma’s Omar Tejeira, 291.

At the El Rin­con Dam, Nicholas Robin­son was eighth in the men’s kayak Sin­gles 200m fi­nal in 42.61 sec­onds.

This af­ter he placed third in the first semi­fi­nal heat in 40.64, to trail Cuban Robert Ben­itez, who won in 40.10, and Venezue­lan Ray Acu­na, who crossed the fin­ish line in 40.35.

<Thomp­son fires Ca­lyp­so Spik­ers sev­enth spot>

Chan­non Thomp­son was one of four T&T play­ers in dou­ble fig­ures as the Ca­lyp­so Spik­ers saved their best per­for­mance for last, beat­ing host El Sal­vador 23-25, 25-17, 25-18, 25-233 in their women’s vol­ley­ball sev­enth-place match at the Car­los El Famoso Her­nan­dez Sports Palace, yes­ter­day.

The Ger­many-based Thomp­son tal­lied 23 points which com­prised

18 spikes, and five ser­vice aces while Krys­tle Es­delle added 19 (17 spikes, one ace, one block), Kay­lon Cruick­shank 12 (four spikes, six blocks, once ace), and cap­tain Jali­cia Ross-Ky­dd ten (sev­en spikes, three blocks.

For­mer Eu­ro­pean-based Dar­lene Ramdin got nine (eight spikes, one ace) and Rayquelle Dick­son chipped in with six points (two spikes, two aces, two blocks in the win for the ‘Ca­lyp­so Spik­ers’ which came af­ter one hour and 21 min­utes.

The vic­to­ry for T&T, the reign­ing eight-time Caribbean cham­pi­ons al­so avenged their open­ing day loss to the same op­po­nents, 17-25, 23-25, 21-25 in Pool B round-robin play.

For El Sal­vador, Gabriela Fu­nes had a team-high 15 points, and Adri­ana Flo­res, 11 while Maria Jimenez added six.

T&T dom­i­nat­ed in all key as­pects of the match and had an ad­van­tage of 56-41 on spikes, 12-4 on blocks, and 11-2 on ser­vice aces.

How­ev­er, the Saleem Ali-coached T&T women were once again guilty of com­mit­ting too many er­rors, 36 to their hosts 19, which pro­longed their task.

Ali, speak­ing af­ter the win said, “Com­ing here was a lit­tle dif­fi­cult, in the first match against El Sal­vador we lacked prac­tice. To­day we shiv­ered all to­geth­er, we im­proved our lev­el to fin­ish”.

T&T 2023 CAC Games medal win­ners

Gold medal

Jereem Richards (ath­let­ics): Men’s 400m

Men’s 4x400m re­lay team (ath­let­ics): Jereem Richards, Ren­ny Quow, Che Lara, Machel Ce­de­nio

Keshorn Wal­cott (ath­let­ics): Men’s Javelin

Men 4x100m re­lay team (ath­let­ics): Kion Ben­jamin, Devin Au­gus­tine, Car­los Hosten, Er­ic Har­ri­son Jr

Nicholas Paul (cy­cling): Men’s Sprint

Dy­lan Carter (swim­ming): men’s 100m freestyle (games record), men’s 50 freestyle (games record), and men’s 500m but­ter­fly (games record)

Sil­ver medal

Women’s 4x100m re­lay (ath­let­ics): Re­yare Thomas, Sanaa Fred­er­ick, Ak­i­lah Lewis, Leah Bertrand

Kwe­si Browne (cy­cling): Men’s Sprint

Joshua John­son (chess): Men’s First Rapid Board

Dy­lan Carter (swim­ming): Men’s 50m back­stroke

Nikoli Black­man (swim­ming): Men’s 200m freestyle

Men’s Hock­ey Team: Akim Tou­s­saint (cap­tain), Shaquille Daniel, Teague Mar­cano, Tariq Mar­cano, Mick­ell Pierre, Jor­dan Reynos, An­drey Rocke, Nicholas Grant, Aidan De Gannes, Jor­dan Vieira, Lyn­dell By­er, Ethan Reynos, Jo­van Wren, Caleb Guisep­pi, Joel Daniel, Dy­lan Fran­cis.

Of­fi­cials: Dar­ren Cowie (coach), Dwain Quan Chan (as­sis­tant coach), Sharon De Fre­itas (man­ag­er), Karielle De Bique (physio), Jude Mc Knight (doc­tor)

Women’s Net­ball Team: Ale­na Brooks, Tia Bruno, Joelisa Coop­er, Tiana Dil­lon, Shaquan­da Greene-Noel, Jameel Mc Carthy, Jere­sia Mc Eachrane, Shaniya Mor­gan, Afeisha Noel, Jel­lene Richard­son, Shantel Seemu­n­gal, Daystar Swift.

Of­fi­cials: Joel Young-Strong (coach), Car­lette Nurse (man­ag­er), Coreen An­drews (doc­tor)

Bronze

Nigel Paul (box­ing): Men’s +92kg

Men’s Team Sprint (cy­cling): Zion Puli­do, Nicholas Paul, Kwe­si Browne

Cherelle Thomp­son (swim­ming): Women’s 50m freestyle

Men’s 4x100 freestyle (Swim­ming): Dy­lan Carter, Nikoli Black­man, Gra­ham Cha­toor, Zarek Wil­son

CAC Games Top 15 Medal ta­ble

Team*Gold*Sil­ver*Bronze

1. Mex­i­co*145*107*99*351

2. Colom­bia*87*90*64*241

3. Cu­ba*74*59*62*195

4. Venezuela*31*46*79*156

5. Puer­to Ri­co*25*26*44*95

6. Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic*22*36*50*108

7. CCS (Guatemala)*17*27*34*78

8. T&T*8*7*4*19

9. El Sal­vador*8*3*16*27

10. Pana­ma*5*6*11*22

11. Cos­ta Ri­ca*4*9*20*33

12. Aru­ba*3*7*6*16

13. Ja­maica*2*6*11*19

14. Bar­ba­dos*2*2*5*9

15. US Vir­gin Is­lands*2*0*0*2