Trinidad and Tobago’s top swimmer George Bovell splashed to this country’s first gold medal on the final day of the swimming competition at the Central American and Caribbean (CAC) Games Thursday night in Veracruz, Mexico.
It was the 2004 Athens Olympic bronze medallist’s third consecutive gold medal in the Men’s 50m freestyle at the regional Games, dating back to his first at the 2006 CAC in Cartagenas, Colombia and the 2010 CAC event in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico.
Bovell who swam out of lane one, splashed to a 22.30 second clocking for the one-lap blue riband event to easily defeat the rest of the field including Suriname’s Tjon-a-Joe Rezo (22.63) and Hansir Garcia of Cuba (22.69).
Bovell added to his bronze medal he won on the previous night in the Men’s 50m backstroke.
Elsewhere, the Trinidad and Tobago women’s hockey team can only hope for bronze after they lost their semi-final match against Cuba 4-2.
Blair Wynne scored a double for this country but it proved insufficient, especially against Cuba Marisel Sierra’s game-winning hat-trick effort.
There was better news for the female basketballers in their group B preliminary match against Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago emerging 59-50 winners at the Benito Juarez Auditorium.
T&T’s Patrice Edwards sank a game-high 24 points to lead T&T to their first victory of the campaign. Edwards shot 60 per cent from the field (nine of 16) and 83 per cent from the free throw line (5/6).
Teammates Afeisha Noel and Rhea Cordio both scored 11 to assist Edwards as they pulled away from their Caribbean rivals in the third quarter to lead 45-38 after both teams were locked at 24-24 at the halftime interval. A 21-14 run in the third quarter proved crucial and T&T ended with a 14-12 last quarter to ensure the win.
At the University of Hugo Sanchez, the T&T women were hammered 7-0 by Colombia in the Women’s football competition.
In the female 10km Open Water competition at Regata Beach, Shania David placed 16th of 18 swimmers in two hours 23 minutes, 35.40 seconds, while her sister Syriah David did not finish the race which was won by Mexico’s Montserrat Ortuno in one hour, 59 minutes,18.9 seconds
In Men’s Judo in the 80kg division T&T’s Jelanie Boyce lost outright to Haiti’s Jackly Joy to finish seventh, while his countryman Sean Lawrence bowed out of the competition at the preliminary stage to El Salvador’s Gustavo Lopez.
In the Men’s 25m Standard Pistol, T&T’s Roger Daniel finished seventh, Rhodney Allen 22nd and Clement Marshall 29th.
Meanwhile, archer George Vire bowed out at the round of 16 stage in the Men’s compound individual competition. Vire beat his teammate Hasmath Ali 143-140 in their round of 32 matchup but would eventually fall to Mexico’s Julio Fierro, 149-141 to miss out on a quarter-final berth.
Amrit Siew faced Jose Reyes of Puerto Rico but scores were unavailable up to press time, while in ladies’ action, Neela Cezair lost out to Guatemala’s Diana Martinez by a 140-137 scoreline.
In competition in the individual recurve, Jean-Luc Espinet was beaten 7-3 by Ricardo Vasquez of Venezuela. Vasquez captured the two points available on sets one, two and five by posting 24-22, 26-24 and 25-24 victory margins, while Espinet won the third set 27-23 to collect two points. The points were shared one apiece in the fourth set after it ended 28-28.
And Sonia Thompson lost 6-0 to Venezuela’s Mayra Mendez. The Venezuelan took the two points on all three sets for 28-17, 29-23 and 27-16 wins.
Today, the Men’s hockey team has a semi-final encounter against hosts Mexico, while Christian Marsden and Sachin Sankar represent T&T in the Men’s 10k Open Water.