Sports
Jonathan Ramnanansingh
SHANIQUA Bascombe’s exit from Thursday’s women’s 200-metre semi-final capped off a mediocre display for Trinidad and Tobago at the World Athletics Under-20 Championships in Cali, Colombia.
TT concluded their campaign without a medal after contesting eight events – 100m, 200m, 400m, 400m hurdles, 4x100m relays, discus, javelin and high jump.
Bascombe was the only TT athlete to make it out of the opening round of competition while Antoine, the 2022 Carifta boys’ U20 high jump champion, did not start his event because of a communication error. The remainder of athletes were all eliminated in the first round.
On Thursday, Bascombe placed fourth in heat one of the women’s 200m in a season best time of 23.68 seconds. She was the twelfth fastest of the 24 advancing semi-finalists.
However, in semi-final heat two, she could not replicate or improve on her previous time and placed fifth in 23.82s. Bascombe would finish 18th overall and end TT’s last hope of a potential U20 World Champs medal.
Earlier in the day, Anthony Diaz was unable to advance to the men’s javelin final. He threw 55.38m, well off the automatic qualifying mark of 72.5m. He finished 17th.
Additionally, neither the men nor the women’s 4x100m relay teams advanced to their respective semi-finals.
The men’s team – Jaden De Souza, Shakeem McKay, Elijah Simmons and Revell Webster – placed third in heat four in a season best time of 40.77s. Their time was 13th fastest in the heats and not good enough to secure a spot in Friday’s medal race.
The top three advancing nations were Japan (39.12s), Jamaica (39.24s) and Nigeria (39.41s).
In the women’s equivalent, TT’s quartet of Bascombe, Reneisha Andrews, Kayla Caesar and Kyah La Fortune placed sixth in heat one in 46.44s. They finished 14th with Jamaica (43.28s), USA (43.66s) and Great Britain (43.78s) leading the finalists.
Before TT’s exit, team manager Michelle Stoute said she hoped for an improved showing on Friday. But it was not to be.
On their prior performances, she said, “You can expect that the athletes’ shoulders have dropped for their performances but we’ve been working on the mental and letting them know that we’re taking each experience, and each result, as a learning phase and moving on from that. Learning from the errors that we made and moving on to the next challenge.”
The World U20 Champs concludes on Saturday but TT will play no further part in the tourney.
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