TRINIDAD and Tobago finished third on the medal table at the Caribbean Junior and Cadet Table Tennis Championships, which concluded on Sunday at Jean Pierre Complex, Wrightson Road, Mucurapo.
The host country actually finished ahead of the six other English-speaking nations involved with one gold, one silver and nine bronze medals at the five-day tournament.
Although T&T amassed 11 total medals and were not that far behind Dominican Republic in the total medal count, they were in a different league in terms of the colour of the hardware.
The Dominican Republic collected 15 medals all told, but ten of them were gold and three were silver. Fellow regional powerhouses Puerto Rico only had three golds, but they ended up with the most overall—18. Their total also included ten silver and five bronze medals.
Guyana were fourth with eight bronze medals, while Barbados were the only other team to finish on the podium, taking home two bronze medals.
Teams from Curacao, St Maarten, St Lucia and Grenada, back in the tournament following a break, walked away empty-handed.
T&T celebrated their first gold medal in the tournament in many years when Catherine Spicer and Arun Roopnarine won the under-18 mixed doubles crown, last Friday.
A few hours later, Roopnarine and Spicer also collected bronze medals when they combined with Aaron Wilson and Brittany Joseph, respectively, to reach the under-18 doubles semifinals.
Roopnarine, Spicer and Wilson were the only members of the squad to win as many as three medals.
Classified Championship A1 winner, Roopnarine had led Wilson, Andreus Pantin and Sarvesh Mungal to the silver medal in the boys’ under-18 team competition the night before. The third for Wilson and Spicer came when they collected bronze after reaching the under-15 and 18 semis, respectively, in singles when the curtain fell on the tournament on Sunday.
Joseph, who last year at age 14 became one of this country’s youngest ever national senior champs, did likewise in the girls’ under-15 draw.
Roopnarine failed to secure a fourth medal when he lost in the boys’ under-18 singles quarterfinals to the eventual champion, Isaac Vila of Dominican Republic. Mungal also went out at that stage.
The quartet of Gyshan Latchman, Nalini Boodoo, Ray J Thomas and Jasher De Gannes picked up bronze for finishing third in the girls’ under-15 team event. And the Latchman/Boodoo and De Gannes/Monique Cooper combinations also bagged bronze medals in doubles for reaching the semis.