TT swimmers lead medal count

The swimming competition continued at the National Aquatic Centre, Couva, yesterday where the hosts have gathered a total of 12 gold, 15 silver and 12 bronze medals up till press time.

Puerto Rico have copped the most gold medals thus far with 14, to go along with eight silver and 14 bronze.

Bermuda, Costa Rica and Panama all have a total of 17 medals as they battle for the overall third position.

With news of Dylan Carter suffering a minor injury to his shoulder after yesterday’s preliminary stages, the home crowd was left to wonder if the swimmer would be able to participate in last night’s races. Carter led the charge for TT on Friday night, smashing another national and tournament record, in the 18-and-Over 200-metre freestyle, when he finished in a time of one minute, 48 seconds. He defeated El Salvadoran Marcelo Acosta and Mikel Schreuders of Aruba, who completed the race in 1:51.73 and 1:51.76, respectively.

Carter then helped the Boys 18-and-Over 400m freestyle relay team to gold as they stopped the clock at 3:29.81, ahead of the Bahamas (3:32.42) and Puerto Rico (3:36.0).

Carter qualified for last evening’s 18-and- Over 100m freestyle and the 800m freestyle relay events but was withdrawn from competing as a precautionary measure for the forthcoming World Championships.

Jonathan Farah was his replacement in the relays.

Team TTO continued to rack up the medals, despite the loss of their most influential athlete, as Christian Dieffenthaller copped gold in the 200m freestyle with his time of 2:02.34. He was closely monitored by Puerto Rican Minfer Lebron who finished in 2:02.51 for the silver. His fellow teammate Aqeel Joseph (2:02.68) also had a solid finish to secure the bronze for the hosts as he managed to hold off the other Puerto Rican Ezequiel Negron (2:02.71).

Dieffenthaller also copped gold in the 400m individual medley, blowing away his competition in 4:46.09. Bajan Nkosi Dunwoody’s time of 4:50.97 was enough to secure silver in the race, ahead of Alejandro Panting of Honduras (4:55.02). Gabriella Donahue continued her form in the competition leading the Girls 400m freestyle relay team to gold in 4:04.83. Costa Rica followed behind in 4:05.83 and Barbados rounded off the top three with a time of 4:10.85.

Kael Yorke copped gold for Team TTO in the Boys 15-17 50m Butterfly while Joshua Romany secured the 18-and- Over butterfly category.