Richards cop second Commonwealth gold for TT

JEREEM RICHARDS copped the second gold medal for Trinidad and Tobago at the 2018 Commonwealth Games, at the Gold Coast, Australia yesterday.

The 24-year-old prevailed in the men’s 200-metre sprint, albeit in controversial fashion.

Zharnel Hughes, an Anguillan competing for England, and Richards were neck-and-neck entering the final 30 metres, and both crossed the line at 20.12 seconds.

Hughes, who was initially declared the winner, was disqualified after his left arm impeded the run of Richards.

And the Point Fortin-born Richards followed on the heels of sprinter Michelle-Lee Ahye, who won the women’s 100m title on Monday.

Kyle Greaux, the other TT finalist, was sixth in 20.63, trailing Aaron Brown of Canada (20.34), Leon Reid of Northern Ireland (20.55), South Africa’s Clarence Munyai (20.58) and Zambia’s Sydney Siame (20.62).

TT have a haul of three medals at the Games, with swimmer Dylan Carter placing second in the men’s 50m butterfly last Thursday.

In the women’s 200m final, Semoy Hackett was seventh and last in 23.16 seconds while Sparkle McKnight placed seventh in the women’s 400m hurdles in 57.45.

Alena Brooks did not advance to the final of the women’s 800m, despite a national record time of two minutes 1.81 seconds in heat three of the first round, while Akeem Stewart opted out of the men’s discus qualifiers. But veteran Cleopatra Borel progressed to today’s final of the women’s shot put, which is set to begin at 6.40 am (TT time), after a throw of 17.46 metres in the qualifiers yesterday.

Three sets of events were due to be staged last evening, at the Carrara Stadium.

Shakeil Waithe was set to feature in Group A of the men’s javelin qualifiers, at 8 pm; the TT men’s 4x100m relay team were expected to contest heat one of the first round at 9.05 pm and the TT men’s mile relay were carded to run heat two of the first round at 10.15 pm.

Trinidad and Tobago rifle shooters had rough outings yesterday in their respective events.

In the 25-metre Rapid Fire Pistol Men’s Qualification Stage One, at the Belmont Shooting Centre, Roger Daniel was 11th with a score of 266-4 while compatriot Rhodney Allen was 12th with 262-2.

All 13 entrants were due to return at 6.30 pm yesterday for Stage Two, while the final was carded to take place five hours later.

At the Belmont Full Bore Range, TT’s Michael Perez and Delborn Joseph were 30th and 31st respectively (out of 33 participants), with scores of 232-13, on the second day of the Queen’s Prize Individual Finals. The final day is due to be contested tomorrow (SATURDAY).

At the Oxenford Studios, Trinidad and Tobago had mixed results, in both squash and table tennis.

At the squash courts, Mandela Patrick and Kale Wilson won their final Men’s Doubles Pool A match, against Fiji’s Sailesh Pala and Romit Parshottam 11-9, 11-3.

But, in the Round of 16 stage, the Patrick-Wilson duo were eliminated by Scotland’s Alan Clyne and Greg Lobban 11-2, 11-5. In terms of table tennis, TT also fell in the Men’s Doubles Round of 16. The pair of Yuvraaj Dookram and Aaron Wilson were beaten in straight sets by Australia’s Heming Hu and Xin Yan 11-2, 12-10, 11-9.