GAMES

Despite not advancing to the semifinal round, two of the three T & T athletes achieved personal bests in the 100 metre freestyle event swum of this morning (India Time) at the Commonwealth Games in India.

All three T & T  swimmers were seeded in heat four, and copped the top three places in the heat. Caryle Blondell lead the heat up to the 50m mark where he split 25 seconds flat. However it was Joshua Mc Leod who stopped the clock first in a personal beat 52.07 seconds to win the heat, improving on his personal best of 52.11.

Jarryd Gregoire was just 0.01 behind Mc Leod, and he too surpassed his personal best which was 52.37. Blondell placed third in 52.60 seconds. The final results placed the trio 21st, 22nd and 24th respectively. The fastest qualifier for the event was Gideon Louw of South Africa in 49.24. Brothers Shaune (49.93) and Brett Fraser (50.21) of the Cayman Islands gave the Caribbean a berth in the semifinal placing 7th and 11th respectively. T & T based Guyanese athlete Jessica Stephenson placed 5th in Heat One of the 200m breaststroke female in a time of 2:49.56.  

Mc Leod, Gregoire and Cadell Lyons will compete in the 100m butterfly tomorrow. Christian Homer will also be in action in the 100m backstroke. Cherelle Thompson is also expected to compete in her pet event the 50m freestyle.

Australian sprinter Sally Pearson has been stripped of a Commonwealth Games gold medal, hours of celebrating victory in the 100m final.
Pearson crossed the line first, finishing in 11.28 seconds, but the result was protested by Englishwoman Laura Turner due to a false start.

Pearson and Laura Turner both appeared to false start but only Turner was given a red card and was disqualified. She successfully argued her case and stayed in the race, competing under protest.
Sally Pearson was the Commonwealth Games 100m champion for just four hours. Photo / AP
Turner finished eighth in 11.57, but the official results listed her as disqualified.

Turner upheld her protest after the race which led to Pearson also being disqualified after four hours of deliberation, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.

The gold medal will be given to Nigeria's Osayemi Oludamola who finished the race in second place.

Pearson was briefly the first Australian woman to win the 100 since Raelene Boyle in 1974.

Source: http:// www.trinidadexpress.com By Kwame Laurence in New Delhi

Shanntol Ince created history at the Dr. S.P.M. Aquatics Complex, here in New Delhi, India, yesterday, becoming the first para athlete to represent Trinidad and Tobago at a major international Games. The 15-year-old swimmer celebrated the occasion by advancing to the women's 50 metres freestyle S9 final. Ince clocked 34.07 seconds to cop fifth spot in the championship race. In the preliminary round, she had finished third in heat one and sixth overall in 34.30. Natalie Du Toit was first home in the final, the South African touching the wall in 29.82 seconds. Australia's Annabelle Williams (30.03) claimed silver, while bronze went to England's Stephanie Millward (30.09).

Joshua McLeod was the best of the three T&T swimmers on show in the men's 50m butterfly semis. He finished fifth in heat one and 10th overall in 24.88 seconds. The top eight advanced to the final. Cadell Lyons (25.13) and Jarryd Gregoire (25.54) were 12th and 15th, respectively.

In the preliminaries, Lyons was 13th fastest in 25.16 seconds, while McLeod (25.19) was 15th and Gregoire (25.57) 16th.

In the women's 100m freestyle preliminaries, Cherelle Thompson finished 27th overall in one minute, 00.46 seconds.

Gregoire, McLeod and Caryle Blondell will be in the pool today, in the opening round of the men's 100m freestyle.

T&T's hockey women lost 11-0 to champions Australia. Emily Hurtz netted a hat-trick for the Aussies.

"We are very disappointed," said T&T player Alana Lewis, after the game. "We needed more discipline. We have a lot of work to do, and we need to focus on our defence."

The T&T women were beaten 12-0 by South Africa on Monday.

At the Yamuna Sports Complex, T&T archers George Vire and Rakesh Sookoo exited in the round of 32 in the men's individual compound. Vire was beaten 2-0 by Canadian Andrew Fagan, while Sookoo lost 2-0 to Welshman Owen Kalmaru.

Both Vire and Sookoo won in the first round of the knockout phase, but their teammate, Hasmath Ali lost his opening contest. He went under 2-0 to another Welshman, James Thomas.

Sookoo edged Northern Ireland's Darran Hall 10-9 in a tie break, after they had won a set apiece and battled to a draw in the other set. Vire stopped Cypriot Marios Perdikos 2-0.

T&T do battle with hosts India today, in a men's team compound elimination match.

Emile Abraham was among the starters in heat one in the men's 40-kilometre points race, at the Indira Gandhi Sports Complex. However, the T&T cyclist did not finish.

Today, Thireef Smart, Njisane Phillip and Haseem McLean will compete in the men's keirin. And in the men's sprint, Phillip, McLean and Christopher Sellier will fly the T&T flag.

Gymnast William Albert will be in action today at the Indira Gandhi Sports Complex, in the men's individual all-around final.

At the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, T&T sprinters Emmanuel Callender, Aaron Armstrong and Marcus Duncan face the starter in the opening round of the men's 100m dash, on day one of the Commonwealth Games athletics meet. Ayanna Hutchinson will be in action in the women's 100m.

At the Siri Fort Sports Complex, T&T squash pro Colin Ramasra faces Malta's Bradley Hindle in a men's singles classic plate quarter-final fixture.

T&T boxer Aaron Prince takes on St Lucia's Miguel Auguste in a welterweight bout, at the Talkatora Indoor Stadium.

And in netball, T&T tackle Samoa in a Group A match-up, at the Thyagaraj Sports Complex. In their opening fixture, on Monday, T&T lost to Jamaica, 75-36.

Source: www.guardian.co.tt

Shooter Roger Daniel is in India to compete in the Commonwealth Games with the hope of building on his 2010 medal count which already includes a gold and a bronze medal at the Central American and Caribbean (CAC) Games in Puerto Rico. The 19th edition of the event starts on Sunday and runs until October 14 in New Delhi. Daniel will also be looking to improve on his performance from the last Commonwealth Games in Melbourne where he placed third in the 50m pistol. In his next major event, the Olympic Qualifiers in Brazil in November, Daniel will vie for his third trip to the world’s biggest sporting stage, having already represented T&T at Athens in 2004 and Beijing in 2008.

Before he left for India, the 40-year-old T&T Defence Force Corporal spoke about what he hopes to accomplish in the next few months. “I’m really going to be pushing myself hard for this,” he said. “The most breathtaking moment of any athlete’s life is when he stands on the podium and hears his national anthem play. I’m looking forward to an experience like that.” A former national hockey player, Daniel first developed an interest in shooting when he joined the Defence Force in 1996 and now looks back on his introduction as a turning point in his life. “All soldiers are expected to be able to shoot and after being around guns so much, it felt like a natural fit,” he shared. “Shooting is a sport that changes you. It requires you to be still, calm and patient for very long periods of time and the training also requires you to take yourself to another level.

“How you are outside of the sport is how you are in the sport. So what you try to do mentally is keep yourself calm at all times and stay focused and just do what you have to do.” Daniel motivates himself by keeping tabs on the performances of the world’s best shooters and setting out to beat their scores. Since shooting is a relatively obscure sport in T&T though, he must deal with shortages in facilities, equipment, ammunition and targets. Despite the setbacks, he remains unfazed in the pursuit of his goals. “I’m not a person that allows frustration to get to me. You have to shut out all these things and stay focused,” he said. “If you get frustrated, your body can create a chemical that causes an imbalance so I try to avoid it.”

There is a feeling in some corners that the sport is dying in T&T but Daniel indicated he has seen an increase in interest following the national team’s third place finish at the 34th Copa Del Caribe in Puerto Rico in May. The real problems, according to him, stem from the local laws restricting young people from picking up a gun which he fears will keep the sport from developing to its full potential. “The outside world will always be ahead of us once their athletes are starting at an earlier age,” he said. “But if we can harness our young talent properly, I think we will see some future champions come out of the sport.” Looking ahead to his own future, Daniel said that shooting will be a part of his life for a long time to come.

Trinidad and Tobago won its first medal  at the 19th Commonwealth  Games as Singapore won the gold medal in the men's 50m Pistol Pair event here today at the Dr Karni Singh Range

Swee Hon Lim and Bin Gai had a total of 1094 shots to clinch the gold medal.

Hosts India had to settle for a silver medal with Omkar Singh and Deepak Sharma returning a total of 1087 points.

Trinidad and Tobago took the bronze medal with Roger  Daniel (548) and Rhodney Allen (533) amassed a score of 1,081.

Allen and Daniel are both members of the Trinidad and Tobago Defence Force. Their confidence boosting efforts on  day two of the Commonwealth Games competition has set the foundation for T&T's quest  to return home with four or more bag more medals in the ten sports.

Chef de Mission Annette Knott expressed optimism that T&T  team will be inspired by the bronze medal performance of the two soldiers.

"It is tough .Winning medals at the Commonwealth Games is not easy. Our athletes must be at the top of their game.I am very encouraged by the positive and focused mood in the camp.Congratulations to Roger and Rhodney. However they are both well aware that they still have other events to come and must therefore remain disciplined and focused.We have to have that determination and burning desire to push on for podium finishes and personal bests." added Knott.