CARIFTA 2019: Aleka Persaud excels in swimming

─ Chantoba shines Bright

Taking a larger contingent to represent Guyana at the 2019 CARIFTA Games being held in the Cayman Islands is paying off, as these young athletes have thus far bagged 7 medals, with one more day of competition still to come. Guyana’s collection of seven medals is comprised of three golds, two silvers and two bronzes.

On the first day of competition, Shaquka Tyrell opened Guyana’s CARIFTA campaign with a bronze medal in the Girls U17 1500M.
Claudrice McKoy, however, outran her fellow competitors in the Girls U20 1500M race to secure Guyana’s first gold medal of the weekend. Clocking a time of 4:39s, she finished ahead of Jamaica’s Kelly-Ann Beckford (4:40s) and Aneisha Lawrence (4:41s).
Chantoba Bright leaped to her third consecutive long jump gold, after copping the top spot in 2017 and 2018. The US-based Guyanese jumped 6.05 metres to win the event ahead of Lotavia Brown of Jamaica (5.83 metres) and Martinique’s Fiona Aholu-Futse (5.78 metres).

Bright subsequently earned silver in the U20 women’s triple-jump event, in which her leap of 12.63 metres was second best to Jamaica’s Lotavia Browne’s, who soared to 13.09 metres.
Anisha Gibbons made history in nabbing the first U17 Javelin gold. The teenager threw the javelin to a distance of 40.34 metres to outclass Barbados’ Vavica Addison’s 39.70 metres and Cayman Islands’ Rachel Pascal’s 35.50 metres.
Joanna Archer narrowly missed out on the Girls U20 800M gold after she fell short by one second in her 2.10s run. Jasmine Knowles of the Bahamas won the event with a time of 2:09s.
Adriel Austin bagged Guyana’s second bronze in the Girls U17 800M event with a time of 2:12s. Jamaicans Kishay Rowe and Jodyann Mitchell were her superiors, each clocking a time of 2:11s.
Guyana has sent 21 athletes to this year’s CARIFTA Games, three up from last year’s 18.

Swimming
Aleka Persaud took her dominance in the pool to Barbados over the weekend, where she has so far captured one gold and three bronze medals.
The twelve-year-old got off to the right start on Saturday, copping gold in the Girls 11-12 100M butterfly with a time of 1:08.52s, two seconds faster than her runner-up. She then put in a third-place performance in the 50M butterfly, which was championed by Trinidad and Tobago’s Joy Blackett in 30.71s and Jamaica’s Giani Francis in 30.86s. Persaud’s time was 30.94s for third place.
The Guyanese found herself on the podium once again after the 200M freestyle, wherein she clocked 2:21.17s for her second bronze medal.