Trinidad and Tobago's 2011 Pan American Games campaign ended on a high note at the Pan American Hockey Stadium, in Guadalajara, Mexico, yesterday.
The men's hockey team hammered Barbados 9-1 to capture seventh spot.
Akim Toussaint led the charge for T&T with five goals, including the opener in the eighth minute and the closing item one minute from the end. Christopher Scipio was on target three times, while the other goal was scored by veteran Kwandwane Browne, from a penalty corner.
T&T led 4-0 at the half-time interval and went further ahead in the 39th minute. Six minutes later, Jemar Small scored for Barbados to make it 5-1. But there were four more goals from T&T, Toussaint finishing off what he had started in the opening period of play.
T&T scored a total of 20 goals against Barbados in the men's hockey tournament. In a Group A showdown, last weekend, T&T whipped the Bajans 11-1.
Late on Friday, at the Telmex Athletics Stadium, Keshorn Walcott smashed his own national junior (under-20) record in finishing seventh in the men's javelin.
Walcott hurled the spear 75.77 metres, a big improvement on the previous T&T junior standard of 72.04, a record he had set in April this year at the Carifta Games in Montego Bay, Jamaica.
That throw--a new Carifta record--earned him gold in the boys' under-20 javelin for the second successive year.
At two meets in June, Walcott bettered 72.04m. On June 12, the Toco athlete threw 72.50m at the warm-up facility of the Hasely Crawford Stadium to win the national junior title. And 13 days later, he produced a 72.87m effort at a twilight meet, at the same venue.
However, since the throwing area at the facility is a makeshift one, neither throw was recognised by the National Association of Athletics Administrations (NAAA) as a national junior record.
On Friday, Walcott opened the Pan Am Games competition with a new T&T under-20 standard, the 18-year-old landing the javelin 72.92m.
In the third round, Walcott improved on his new record, the 75.77m effort earning him seventh spot in a strong field of 15.
Cuba's Guillermo Martinez was on fire, striking gold with an 87.20m heave--a new Games record. With that monster throw, Martinez jumped from 12th to fourth on the 2011 world performance list.
American Cyrus Hostetler (82.24m) snapped up silver, while the other 18-year-old in the competition, Argentina's Braian Toledo (79.53m), picked up bronze.
T&T earned four medals at the 2011 Pan American Games.
Cleopatra Borel (women's shot put) and shooter Roger Daniel (men's 10m air pistol) secured silver, while bronze was bagged by Emmanuel Callender (men's 100m dash) and cyclist Njisane Phillip (men's sprint).
Source: www.trinidadexpress.com
By Kwame Laurence