Pan American Games 2023: Gloomy Saturday for team Guyana

Story and photos by Jemima Holmes

Saturday was a tough day at the office for Guyana’s Pan American Games team in Santiago, Chile, as athletes in four sporting disciplines bowed out of competition.
The day began with Raekwon Noel hitting the pool in the Men’s 400M freestyle heat. After leading the heat for about 300M, he was overtaken by Costa Rica’s Alberto Vega Sancho, who won in 4 minutes, 5 seconds. Noel was second in 4 minutes, 7 seconds, while Cayman Islands’ James Allison was third just milliseconds behind Noel. Although Noel finished second in the heat, he failed to qualify for the next round of the Men’s freestyle. After the heat, the 17-year-old swimmer declared he was satisfied with his performance.

“Actually, I am. Although I added a few seconds, it was fine. I executed the race exactly how I wanted to, versus with Japan. With Japan, I started a bit faster, so I learned from that experience that I had to, you know, conserve my energy for the rest of the race,” Noel related.
The swimmer added, “The 400 free is a very tricky race; you don’t know if it’s a sprint or a distance, but my way of getting through it is, you know, just pushing through all four hundreds. But, I’m pretty satisfied with the race otherwise.”

However, in a positive twist for the teenager, he obtained more competition time in the pool on Saturday afternoon after gaining qualification to the Freestyle B final, being among the next best 8 finishers after the heat round. In that race, Noel clocked 4:05.82 for 7th place.
Then over in the contact sports arena, Ceili Peterson made her Pan Am Games debut for Guyana in the Women’s 49Kg Kyorugi division of Taekwondo. Peterson lost the first round 2-3 to Costa Rica’s Laura Sancho Cartin, but the Guyanese rebounded in the second to win 13-12, setting up an entertaining final round. However, Peterson lost the third round 6-4 following a tense video review that could have given her the upper hand if it had gone her way.

Peterson summed up the outing by saying, “I did my best. The other athlete is a very experienced fighter, so she did a good job today. You know, we’re going to go back to training and keep working on the things that I did wrong today, and hopefully, next time it will go my way.
“It’s a privilege to represent Guyana. My mom’s parents are both born and raised there, and it’s nice to be able to represent their home country,” she added about representing Guyana for the first time.

Later in the day, Desmond Amsterdam suffered a unanimous points decision loss to Argentina’s Abraham Buonarrigo in the Men’s 80Kg class. While the duo went pound for pound, Buonarrigo’s stature gave him the upper hand over the Guyanese.
In his assessment of the fight, Amsterdam revealed that it was one he enjoyed.
“First of all, I have to give praise and thanks, you know, for health and strength. Well, going into the fight, I think the first round, the Argentina guy win the first round, but the second and the third round, I think it should’ve been more closer; but it is what is. That’s how boxing goes, you know, you win some, you lose some. But it was a nice fight, I enjoyed it,” Amsterdam shared.
The boxer continued, “I appreciate the work that the coach, that we done together to change up things, change my tactics. But just have to go back to the drawing board and focus on the next two qualifiers. Yes man, I have faith, and I’m determined,” he added about his Paris 2024 Olympics dream.
In the evening, a lingering injury forced Priyanna Ramdhani out of the Women’s Singles contention over on the Badminton courts.
Ramdhani was up against Brazil’s Juliana Viana Vieira in the Round of 32. The Brazilian won the first set 21-6, and looked well on her way to taking the second set when Ramdhani alerted her coach about her injury during the break. The Guyanese eventually retired with the set left 11-0, as Vieira took the victory.
The Pan Am Games action will continue today with Guyanese athletes competing in Boxing and Weightlifting.