media_artricles :: 2018

Borel loses bronze on last throw

It was just not to be for Cleopatra Borel yesterday, as she missed out on a medal in the women's shot put final at the Commonwealth Games here in Australia.

The field specialist fought gallantly to the end, which looked promising until the sixth and final round concluded as she was in bronze medal position. However, Canada's Brittany Crew surpassed Borel on her last throw.

After five rounds and reduction from 12 to eight competitors in the medal event, Borel was in third spot after improving her throws gradually from 17.59 metres to be at 18.00 metres by the end of this round.

However, Crew's final throw reached 18.32 metres to surpass Borel and although the local athlete gave her all again on her sixth attempt, improving to 18.05m, she had to settle for a tear-wrenching fourth

place.Borel opened with a 17.59m throw, the second measured 17.82m, her third reached 17.81m, before tossing the object 18.00m in her fourth try. She then got to 17.68m and 18.05m in the fifth and sixth rounds respectively.

Speaking to Guardian Media afterwards, Borel said, "The meet progressed in a good way. All of my throws were consistently getting better but on the sixth throw, the girl from Canada put one out there and that was it. Even though I improved on my last throw it wasn't enough to regain the medal.

"But I am proud of what I did and I am proud of the meet I put together. We worked really hard to get here and the results were better than World Championships so we're just going to keep working, keep plugging."

The five-time "Sportswoman of the Year" admitted she was always wary of the dangerous Canadian.

"I was just preparing myself, don't relax, get ready to respond. She is a spinner and spinners do stuff like that where they can make these throws. For instance I glide so I do the linear technique, which is just moving back, but she does a rotational technique and with this technique you can put a big score together out of nowhere and is what she did tonight (yesterday).

"She put it together on the last throw so I was cognizant of that and I said to myself do not relax, get ready, just focusing and get ready to respond and I did that, I responded. My response was not good enough but I did not crumble and for that I am proud of myself."

The eventual winner was Jamaica's Danniel Thomas-Dodd (19.36), with two-time Olympic gold medallist Valerie Adams of New Zealand second (18.70) and Crew third.

4x400m, Waithe join 4x100 women, men stumble out

Yesterday, the T&T men's 4x400m team and javelin thrower Shakeil Waithe joined the women's 4x100m relay team in the final of their respective events while the men's sprint relay team failed to get the baton around in the track at the Carrara Stadium.

T&T women's team will line up in the final from lane eight at 12.37 am (TT time) today as there were only eight teams entered for the event.

Waithe was first in action in the men's javelin throw and after a nervous start, finished in fifth in the first group with a throw of 75.21m and then overall 10th to advance as part of the top 12 into today's final, which scheduled for 12.35 am (TT time).

With former World champion Julius Yego, of Kenya, crashing out at the first stage and no Keshorn Walcott through injury, the javelin event was expected to be an open affair.

Next up was the men's 4x100m relay semifinals, with T&T's Keston Bledman, Marc Burns, Nathan Farinha and Emmanuel Callender, running in that order, competing from lane three. But there was a mix up between the second and third handover between Burns and Farinha, which led to T&T failing to complete the event.

"I made my move too early. Australia was right next to me and I got mixed up with the mark and so I ran too early," said Farinha, clearly despondent. "This hurts so, so much."

Burns added, "He showed me the marker he ran off from and I had to tell him that was the Australian mark not mine and therefore that is why he moved so fast. This happens, he is inexperienced and we all make mistakes in life. The challenge will be to recover from it and learn quickly. It was a case of jitters."

Bledman meanwhile said, "I did not see what happen. I just came out and ran my race. The focus in these races is not about speed, it is about getting the stick around but things like these happen and he now needs to learn from this and move on."

Callender sympathised with young Farinha.

"I feel his pain but we are in this together. We probably need to have more training sessions and a relay camp to iron out some of these things. We need to support him because I know he is hurting."

Last up in the morning session was T&T's World Championships gold-medal winning 4x400m squad of Renny Quow, Deon Lendore, Lalonde Gordon and Machel Cedenio in the second semifinal. T&T finished in fifth in a time of 3.05.84 and was promoted to fourth after Australia was disqualified.

The local quartet is expected to welcome back new 200m champion Jereem Richards, who collected his gold medal yesterday, for today's final, carded for at 3.07 am (TT time). They will race from lane one.

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