T&T's ath­letes made a huge jump on the medal stand­ings at the Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean (CAC) Games on Thurs­day night with five medals, in­clu­sive of three gold and two sil­ver in El Sal­vador.

Jereem Richards, the T&T half-lap and one-lap sprint­er was among the gold medal win­ners, along with the 2012 Olympic Games javelin gold medal­list Keshorn Wal­cott, the mem­bers of the 4x100 me­tres men's re­lay team, and the mem­bers of the 4x100 women's re­lay team who got a sil­ver in the fi­nal.

Richards, en­ter­ing the fi­nal of the 400m sprint on the back of a rel­a­tive­ly slow 45.96 sec­onds which he pro­duced in the semi­fi­nal on Tues­day, was in omi­nous form in Thurs­day's fi­nal. Pick­ing up from a de­cent start in lane five of the Es­ta­dio Na­cional Jorge El Mági­co González Ath­let­ics Sta­di­um, the 2022 World In­door 400m cham­pi­on forged ahead of the field mid­way in the race and opened up a size­able gap be­fore cross­ing the fin­ish line eas­i­ly for the gold in a per­son­al best time of 44.54.

He was fol­lowed in­to the sec­ond po­si­tion by St Lu­cia's Michael Joseph, pro­duc­ing a time of 44.90 with Mar­tinique's Gilles Biron, the man with the fastest time in the semi­fi­nal round, un­able to re­al­ly in­crease his speed in the fi­nal, as he crossed the line at 45.06.

Lat­er in the re­lays, the coun­try's 4x100m men's quar­tet of Kion Ben­jamin, Devin Au­gus­tine, Car­lon Hosten and Er­ic Har­ri­son Jr was un­stop­pable as they crossed the fin­ish line at 38.30, which was not too far off the Games record time of 38.24 sec­onds that was set by a T&T team back in 2010 in Mayaguez, Puer­to Ri­co.

The Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic's four­some of Er­ick Sanchez, Yan­car­los Mar­tinez, Christo­pher Valdez and Jose Gon­za­lez took the sil­ver medal in 38.61. Venezuela's team of Alex­is Nieves, David Vi­vas, Bryant Alamo and Rafael Vasquez sealed the third-place fin­ish and the re­sult­ing bronze medal at 39.13.

Mean­while, the T&T women's team of Re­yare Thomas, Sanaa Fred­er­ick, Ak­i­lah Lewis and Leah Bertrand made up for their un­suc­cess­ful in­di­vid­ual events at the tour­na­ment by col­lec­tive­ly tak­ing the sil­ver medal in the fi­nal of the 4x100m re­lay.

Af­ter failed at­tempts at medals in the 100m (Leah Bertrand and Ak­i­lah Lewis) and the 200m (Sanaa Fred­er­ick), the run­ners com­bined to take the sil­ver medal in a quick 43.43. The race was won by the Cuban four­some of Yari­ma Gar­cia, Yu­nislei­dy Gar­cia, Lau­ra Mor­eira and Enis Perez who raced to the fin­ish in 43.17.

Ear­li­er, Wal­cott, in on­ly his sec­ond at­tempt in the men's javelin fi­nal, cov­ered a dis­tance of 83.60m to get the bet­ter of David Carreon of Mex­i­co (78.03m).

Wal­cott re­cent­ly was sixth in the men’s javelin at the Wan­da Di­a­mond League in Do­ha, Qatar, last week at 81.27 me­tres, but he made amends on Thurs­day by hurl­ing the spear rod a fur­ther two me­tres, to make up for his first throw at 77.68m as well as his sec­ond at­tempt at 76.90m, af­ter he scratched on the third.

Ja­maica's Elvis Gra­ham claimed the bronze medal with a dis­tance of 76.43m which he at­tained on­ly af­ter his first try.

Cherisse Mur­ray was a fifth-place fin­ish in the women's shot put fi­nal on Thurs­day night. The stocky throw­er sent the met­al ball a dis­tance of 16.59m, which was on her sec­ond throw. This fol­lowed un­suc­cess­ful at­tempts of 15.48m, 15.25m, 15.92m and 16.45m which all came nowhere close to the win­ning throw by Rosa Ramirez of Do­mini­ca at 17.89m. Danielle Slo­ley of Ja­maica took the sil­ver medal with a dis­tance of 16.81m, and Cu­ba's Lay­selis Jimenez was third (16.79m).

Fri­day night the ac­tion con­tin­ued with Richards go­ing for an­oth­er medal in the fi­nal of the men's 4x400m.

Richards will team up with an equal­ly tal­ent­ed bunch that com­pris­es Adol­phus James, Che Lara, Ren­ny Quow and Machel Ce­de­nio. They will run out of lane five.

Mean­while, Kelsey Daniel was al­so ex­pect­ed to con­test the men's triple Jump fi­nal.

Joshua John­son cops chess sil­ver

Joshua John­son shined in his de­but at the CAC Games, clinch­ing the sil­ver medal with strate­gic bril­liance in the men’s first rapid board at the Ho­tel Best West­er Ter­raza. Cuban Car­los Al­bor­noz won the gold medal while Venezue­lan Samid Escalona was the bronze medal­list.

John­son al­so com­pet­ed in the men's first blitz board and placed 14th.

In the men's sec­ond rapid board, T&T's Hay­den Lee fin­ished tied in 14th place with Hon­duran Ale­jan­dro Chin­cil­la and Cyrus Daniela of St Lu­cia.

Gabriel­la John­son com­pet­ed in the women's rapid board and end­ed in a four-way tied in ninth po­si­tion along with Ja­maica's Rae­han­na Brown, Pana­man­ian Lour­des Vasquez and Mary Gon­za­lez of the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic.

She had no bet­ter luck in the women's first blitz board, set­tling for 11th spot tied with Haiti's Rose Berline Seine.

Adaya John­son was a 16th-place fin­ish­er in both the women's sec­ond rapid board and the sec­ond blitz board com­pe­ti­tions.

Women "Spik­ers" play for sev­enth spot

The women's team will on Sat­ur­day play for sev­enth spot against Mex­i­co at the Pala­cio de los De­portes Car­los el Famoso Main Court from 11 am.

This is af­ter they squan­dered con­sec­u­tive match­es against Cu­ba on Thurs­day and Mex­i­co yes­ter­day. In a Group B match on Thurs­day, the Ca­lyp­so Spik­ers went down to their Cuban coun­ter­parts in straight sets 3-0 (25-16, 25-17, 25-17), which put them on course for a 5th-8th-place show­down with Mex­i­co.

How­ev­er, they again strug­gled to hold their own against a su­pe­ri­or Mex­i­co team which cruised to the vic­to­ry 3-0 (25-15, 25-18,25-22).

Wa­ter­po­lo men fin­ish fifth

The T&T men's team played to a fifth-place fin­ish over­all af­ter a con­vinc­ing vic­to­ry over El Sal­vador 17-12 at the Com­ple­jo Acuáti­co Mer­liot last night.

The bat­tle for fifth and sixth po­si­tions came when the men in red, white and black de­feat­ed the Cen­tro Caribe Sports 16-8 in a fifth-eighth play­off semi­fi­nal, the day be­fore. How­ev­er, the T&T men had it all to do from the start with both teams dead­locked at 4-4 at the end of the first quar­ter.

Lat­er, they shook off their com­peti­tors to take the ad­van­tage 9-5 and the sec­ond ses­sion, be­fore ex­tend­ing their lead to 14-7 at the close of the third quar­ter.

T&T then sur­vived a last-ditch ef­fort at a come­back by the El Sal­vado­ri­ans to seal the win at the end 17-12.

Alexan­der beat­en in taek­won­do

Do­ri­an Alexan­der was the lone T&T ath­lete in­volved in taek­won­do ac­tion. He went down to Diego Mont­u­far of the Cen­tro Caribe Sports 2-1 in the round of 16 men's 68kg af­fair at the Juan Pablo Duarte on Thurs­day.

Camp­bell ped­als to sixth place

Ak­il Camp­bell ped­alled his way to the sixth po­si­tion at Fri­day's Road Race at Aveni­da Jerusalem. He was among 46 rid­ers who took the starter's gun, that in­clud­ed com­pa­tri­ot Tariq Woods, but in the end, he re­turned home three hours, 51 min­utes and 13 sec­onds to the fin­ish line. Woods though, did not fin­ish the race.

That race was won by Or­luis Aular of Venezuela (3:51:10) with the pair of Miguel An­gel Lopez Moreno (3:51:12) and Do­ri­an Mon­ter­roso of the Cen­tro Caribe Sports (3:51:12) tak­ing the oth­er two po­si­tions re­spec­tive­ly.

And in the women's road race, T&T's Alexi Cos­ta was the 18th rid­er to have crossed the fin­ish, af­ter rid­ing for two hours, 54 min­utes and 09 sec­onds.

Ca­lyp­so Girls crush Cay­man 90-12

T&T "Ca­lyp­so Girls" was sched­uled to meet Ja­maica on Fri­day night at the Gim­na­sio Na­cional José Adol­fo Pine­da, to de­ter­mine the gold medal­list in the net­ball com­pe­ti­tion. Both teams en­tered the vir­tu­al fi­nal un­beat­en. This af­ter the "Ca­lyp­so Girls" claimed its fourth straight win in the six-team com­pe­ti­tion, whip­ping the Cay­man Is­lands, 90-12, on Thurs­day night.

It was youth play­er Shaniya Mor­gan lead­ing T&T's shoot­ing with 38 goals from 50 at­tempts af­ter she re­placed goal-shoot­er Afeisha Noel at half­time. The open­ing goal-shoot­er pro­duced 32 goals from 36 tries. Noel part­nered with goal-at­tack Joelisa Coop­er who did well to feed her shoot­er while net­ting all of her five at­tempts.

Tiana Dil­lon came on to re­place Coop­er in the goal-at­tack bib and she was good for 15 off 21 in the lop­sided match-up.

Ear­li­er, the Ja­maican "Sun­shine Girls" topped the St Vin­cent and the Grenadines, 65-40. In the oth­er match of the evening, Bar­ba­dos sealed a 98-12 win over the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic.