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Saturday, February 22, 2025

T&T Pan Am Juniors struggle continue

by

Nigel Simon
1184 days ago
20211126

This coun­try's strug­gles con­tin­ued on the sec­ond day of the in­au­gur­al Ju­nior Pan Amer­i­can Games in Cali, Colom­bia, on Fri­day.

This as the T&T ath­letes com­pet­ing in cy­cling, cy­cling, and triathlon all failed to progress to the medal round of any of their re­spec­tive events.

T&T’s biggest medal hope on the day was at the Al­cides Ni­eto Pati­no Velo­drome, Pista, how­ev­er, the lo­cal trio of Tariq Woods, Michael Ac­k­ee, and Zion Puli­do com­bined for a time of 48.342 sec­onds for the fifth and fi­nal spot in the qual­i­fy­ing round of the Men’s Cy­cling Team Sprint, to miss out on a chance at a medal.

Host Colom­bia topped the heats in a siz­zling 44.950, well ahead of Ar­genti­na (46.088), Mex­i­co (46.426), and Venezuela (48.320) ahead of last night’s fi­nals.

It was al­so a tough first day at the Her­nan­do Botero O'bryne Swim­ming Pools for the T&T swim­mers as none of the four in in­di­vid­ual com­pe­ti­tion ad­vanced to medal swims.

In the men’s 400m freestyle heat two of three, T&T’s Nikoli Black­man of Mar­lins, swim­ming out of lane one of eight, touched the wall in a per­son­al best time of four min­utes, 09.15 sec­onds for the sev­enth spot and on­ly ahead of Nicaraguan Ger­ald Huer­ta who clocked 4:19.90.

Colom­bia San­ti­a­go Za­bala gave the host some­thing to cheer about when he won the heat in 3:59.80, to fin­ish ahead of Ar­genti­na’s Gi­an Tur­co (3:59.86) and an­oth­er Colom­bian, Juan Re­stre­po (4:00.03).

The trio of Pe­ru­vian Rafael Castil­la (4:02.50), Ecuadore­an Joseph Ru­bio (4:03.47), and Ar­genti­na’s Lu­cas Al­ba (4:08.24) al­so fin­ished ahead of Black­man in fourth, fifth, and sixth po­si­tions, re­spec­tive­ly.

In the third and fi­nal 400m freestyle heat, T&T’s Gra­ham Cha­toor, a se­nior at the New York Uni­ver­si­ty, was fourth in 4:06.19, to fin­ish be­hind Brazil­ian win­ner, Ed­uar­do De Moraes (3:59.74), Pe­ru’s Joaquin Gal­lo (4:02.55) and Chile’s Ed­uar­do Gomez (4:03.00) while Paraguay’s Math­eo Mon­ge­los (4:08.57), Cuban Adri­an Foya (4:10.35) and Aruban, Patrick Grot­ers (4:11.07) were the oth­er fin­ish­ers.

Last night, Cha­toor, who had the ninth-fastest pre­lim­i­nary-heat time to just miss out on the fi­nal, and Black­man were both ex­pect­ed to take part in the 400m freestyle B-fi­nal.

The Uni­ver­si­ty of Ne­bras­ka’s Gabriel Don­ahue al­so had a tough time in the women’s 100m breast­stroke with a sixth-placed fin­ish in the fourth and fi­nal heat in 1:17.46 for 21st over­all from the field of 27 en­trants.

Uni­ver­si­ty of In­di­anapo­lis ace, Kael Yorke was al­so ex­pect­ed to swim the men’s 200m but­ter­fly B fi­nal af­ter he was fourth in heat two in 2:07.25 for the 11th-best time over­all.

T&T was ex­pect­ed to go af­ter gold in the men’s 4x100 me­tres freestyle re­lay last night as well, against Ecuador, Puer­to Ri­co, Mex­i­co, Pe­ru and Chile in a six-team fi­nal.

At Lake Cal­i­ma, Club Nau­ti­co, Jean-Marc Grander­son, T&T’s lone triath­lete placed 31st with a to­tal time of one hour, 11 min­utes and 36 sec­onds. This af­ter Grander­son was timed at 25:13.00 min­utes for run­ning, 32.27 for cy­cling, and 11.19 for swim­ming.

Sat­ur­day, this coun­try’s lone box­er, Juan Ro­driguez is al­so set to en­ter the ring in the men’s 52kg quar­ter­fi­nal round against Guatemala’s Jose Daniel Fe­lipe Mi­jan­gos at the Luis Igna­cio Al­varez Are­na, Can­cha.

Hav­ing missed out on par­tic­i­pat­ing in the first of two men’s K1 1,000-me­tre men’s ca­noe sprints at Lake Cal­i­ma, on Thurs­day, due to com­mu­ni­ca­tion mix up which forced him to be at the wrong start­ing lo­ca­tion, T&T’s Josi­ah Clarke will turn his at­ten­tion to the K1 200m event Sat­ur­day.

Al­so in swim­ming, Don­ahue (200m freestyle) and Or­nel­la Walk­er (200 IM/med­ley), Cha­toor (200m freestyle), Zarek Wil­son (200m freestyle/100m but­ter­fly) and Yorke (100m but­ter­fly)

Javelin throw­er Tyriq Hors­ford is T&T’s lead­ing medal hope at the first-ever Un­der-23 Games which ends on Thurs­day (De­cem­ber 5).

Hors­ford will be lead­ing the team in the medal cat­e­go­ry fol­low­ing his sil­ver medal at the 2017 Ju­nior Com­mon­wealth Games in the Ba­hamas.

Ear­li­er this year, he nabbed gold at the North Amer­i­can, Cen­tral Amer­i­can, and Caribbean Ath­let­ic As­so­ci­a­tion (NACAC) Un­der-18, Un­der-20, and Un­der-23 Cham­pi­onships in Cos­ta Ri­ca. Hors­ford has al­so won mul­ti­ple gold medals at the Carif­ta Games over the years.

Chef de mis­sion, Di­ane Hen­der­son is head of the TeamT­TO del­e­ga­tion that in­cludes eight sport­ing dis­ci­plines at the Games, con­sist­ing of 23 ath­letes (18 male, 5 fe­male) and 17 of­fi­cials.

T&T is be­ing rep­re­sent­ed at the Games in ath­let­ics, 3x3 bas­ket­ball, box­ing, ca­noe, cy­cling, triathlon, swim­ming, and weightlift­ing.


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