Mc Millan-Cole, Carrington swim to Carifta gold medals

Ethan McMil­lan-Cole and Liam Car­ring­ton were the lone gold medal win­ners for T&T on the open­ing night of fi­nals at the 39th Carif­ta Aquat­ics Cham­pi­onships at the Pierre Samot Com­mu­ni­ty Aquat­ic Cen­tre, Le Lamentin, Mar­tinique, on Sat­ur­day.

In ad­di­tion to the two gold medals, T&T swim­mers al­so bagged five sil­ver and three bronze to end the first day of com­pe­ti­tion in the an­nu­al 24-na­tion cham­pi­onships with ten medals (two gold, five sil­ver and three bronze).

The 14-year-old McMil­lian-Cole swam to this coun­try’s first gold medal of the com­pe­ti­tion when he sped home in the 13-14 Boys’ 200m breast­stroke in two min­utes, 28.25 sec­onds, well clear of sil­ver medal­list Kione Deshong of St Vin­cent, who touched the wall in two min­utes, 39.53 sec­onds, and Aruban Le­an­dro Santi­este­ban’s time of two min­utes, 39.93 sec­onds, with T&T’s oth­er fi­nal­ist, Kyle Leera, fifth in two min­utes, 43.43 sec­onds.

The win­ner of sev­en in­di­vid­ual gold medals and three in re­lay events last year on home soil, Car­ring­ton, 17, opened his medal ac­count in this year’s event by storm­ing to vic­to­ry in a new games record time of 25.47 sec­onds, with the Cay­man Is­lands’ duo, Luke Hig­go (26.51), and Lev Fahy (26.86), sec­ond and third re­spec­tive­ly.

Ear­li­er on the night, Mare­na Mar­tinez, 14, won T&T’s first medal, a sil­ver in the 13-14 Girls’ 800m freestyle time fi­nals in nine min­utes, 38.52 sec­onds, to fin­ish well adrift of gold medal win­ner US Vir­gin Is­lands’ Rea­gan Uszen­s­ki, who pow­ered to vic­to­ry in nine min­utes, 20.15 sec­onds, with Guade­loupe’s Thea Jean-Phillippe third in nine min­utes, 54.59 sec­onds.

The 11-year-old Seren­i­ty Pan­tin added to T&T’s medal haul with a sec­ond-placed fin­ish in the 11-12 Girls’ 50m back­stroke in 31.99 sec­onds, just shy of gold medal win­ner Ja­maican Daniel­la Pow­ell, who won in 31.94, with St Lu­cian Sap­phire Parks tak­ing the bronze in 32.27, while fel­low T&T swim­mer Za­hara An­tho­ny was eighth in 34.21.

An­tho­ny, 12, had much bet­ter for­tune in the 11-12 Girls’ 100m but­ter­fly as she se­cured a sil­ver medal with a time of one minute, 09.95 sec­onds, to trail St Lu­cian Parks, who won in one minute, 08.04 sec­onds, with Bar­ba­di­an Gabriel­la Babb earn­ing bronze in one minute, 13.45 sec­onds, and T&T’s oth­er en­trant, Katelon Leera, eighth in one minute, 16.25 sec­onds.

There was a bright start to the 4×100 freestyle re­lays for T&T, with the quar­tet of Pan­tin, Na’Zya George, Leera and An­tho­ny com­bin­ing for sil­ver in the 11-12 Girls cat­e­go­ry in four min­utes, 24.99 sec­onds, just edged out by the Ba­hamas, who won in four min­utes, 23.78 sec­onds, with Ja­maica third in four min­utes, 28.49 sec­onds.

How­ev­er, af­ter some near miss­es in the oth­er age groups, it was left to the 15-17 boys’ four­some of Isa­iah Alexan­der, An­pherne Bernard, Car­ring­ton and Jadon Ramdeen to end the night with an­oth­er sil­ver medal in three min­utes, 31.24 sec­onds, af­ter a close bat­tle with even­tu­al win­ners Ja­maica, who won in a time of three min­utes, 30.61 sec­onds.

The trio of Mic­ah Alexan­der, Bernard and Car­ring­ton al­so picked up in­di­vid­ual bronze medals on the open­ing night for T&T.

The 12-year-old Alexan­der was third in the 11-12 Boys’ 200m breast­stroke in two min­utes, 58.87 sec­onds, with team­mate Tay­lan Daiz, fourth in two min­utes, 59.96 sec­onds, as both T&T men fin­ished be­hind Bar­ba­di­an Chris­t­ian Van­der­pool, who won in two min­utes, 46.27 sec­onds, and Ba­hami­an Lo­gan Co­mar­cho, the run­ner-up in two min­utes, 57.61 sec­onds.

Alexan­der al­so had a near miss in the 50m back­stroke when he placed fourth in 31.96 sec­onds, pipped to the wall by host swim­mer Lu­cas Wa­to, who touched in 31.94; St Lu­cian Tyler Dantes was the win­ner in 31.61, and Cay­man Is­lands’ Aad­hyaan Agar­w­al was sec­ond in 31.66, while T&T’s Julius En­nals was sixth in 32.72.

Bernard got to the wall in the 15-17 Boys’ 200m breast­stroke in two min­utes, 27.62 sec­onds, which was on­ly bet­tered by Ba­hami­an Tris­ten Hep­burn’s time of two min­utes, 24.66 sec­onds, and Mar­tinique’s Lu­cas Pa­tron, who got home in two min­utes, 25.93.

And in the 15-17 Boys’ 100m but­ter­fly, Car­ring­ton’s time of 56.55 sec­onds was up­staged by Hait­ian Chris­t­ian Jerome’s mark of 55.23 and St Lu­cian An­toine Destang’s 56.36, with T&T’s Jaden Mills, 16, fifth in the same event in 57.85.

Last night, the T&T swim­mers went af­ter more sil­ver­ware in the fi­nals of the boys’ and girls’ 200m freestyle, 50m but­ter­fly, 100m back­stroke, 400m in­di­vid­ual med­ley (slow heats) and the 4x100m med­ley re­lay fi­nals.

Lead­ing the charge were An­tho­ny and Pan­tin, who con­test­ed three fi­nals each, while Zara Per­si­co, Car­ring­ton, Katelon Leera, and Valen­tine qual­i­fied for two fi­nals each.

The oth­er fi­nal­ists last night were En­nals, Mar­tinez, Nikois Bap­tiste, Mills, Jonathan Sam­bra­no, Mic­ah Alexan­der, Tay­lor Mar­cha, Isa­iah Alexan­der and Anya Davis.

The com­pe­ti­tion re­sumes to­day from 9 am.

T&T oth­er first night fi­nal­ists

200m breast­stroke

Katelon Leera (11-12 Girls’) – fifth – 3:06.07 min­utes

Rae­gan Bel­mar (15-17 Girls’) – sev­enth- 2:57.22 mins

50m back­stroke

Xaiden Valen­tine (13-14 Boys’) – fifth – 29.42 sec­onds

100m but­ter­fly

Mare­na Mar­tinez (13-14 Girls’) – eighth – 1:10.74 mins

Xaiden Valen­tine (13-14 Boys’) – fifth – 1:02.95 mins

Kyle Leera (13-14 Boys’) – sixth – 1:03.42 mins

4×100 freestyle re­lays

11-12 Boys’ (Mic­ah Alexan­der, Eli Ed­wards, Tay­lan Di­az, Julius En­nals) – sixth – 4:26.70 mins

13-14 Girls’ (Zara Per­si­co, Tay­lor Marchan, Za­lay­har Lewis, Mare­na Mar­tinez) – fourth – 4:14.94 mins

13-14 Boys’ (Nikosi Bap­tiste, Ethan Mc Mil­lan-Cole, Xaiden Valen­tine, Kyle Leera) – fourth – 3:55.45 mins