TEAM Saint Lucia captured a historic second gold medal at the sixth edition of the Commonwealth Youth Games in the Bahamas on Saturday evening — this time around in beach football.
Losing to Trinidad and Tobago 4-3 in an earlier match, the Saint Lucia team came out firing on all cylinders as they had a point to prove.
The Saint Lucians stunned the Trinidadians with 5 goals in the first half and 1 in the second half, demolishing their opponents 6-2, with Linus Clovis scoring 4 goals.
On Friday, the Trinidad and Tobago men battled to a 6-6 draw with Antigua and Barbuda before winning 2-1 on penalties in the opening game. T&T got their second win on Thursday, beating St. Lucia 4-3.
In football, Team Saint Lucia’s performance at the games reads a 5-2 win over host Bahamas, a loss to Trinidad and Tobago (3-4) and a win over Antigua and Barbuda (5-2).
Saint Lucia captured its first gold at the Games on Thursday evening when Julien Alfred won the Girls’ U-18 100-metres final in 11:56 seconds to give Saint Lucia its first-ever gold medal at the CYG and first-ever gold medal at a major championship.
Other results on the final day of competition included Saint Lucia’s Kimani Alphonse in the Girls 200-meters final. She finished sixth in a time of 24:71 seconds. The eventual winner was Louis Day of Australia (23:42 seconds), second place AnysiaDefreitas of the British Virgin Islands (23:42 seconds) and third Grace Connolly of Australia (24:09 seconds).
In the Boys’ javelin finals, Saint Lucia’s DevornMoise finish eighth with a throw of 56.24 metres. The event was won by Australia’s Neil Janse (74.19 metres); second place went to Tyriq Horsford of Trinidad and Tobago (69.43 metres) and third Louis Sullivan of Australia (66.23 metres).
In cycling, Saint Lucia’s lone competitor, Kluivert Mitchell, finish 14th overall out of 52 competitors in a time of 1 hour, 33 minutes and 64 second; 0.1:16 behind the eventual winner, Thoms Bostock of Isle of Man (1 hour and 32:28 seconds). Bostock also won the Time Trial on Wednesday in a time of 12 minutes and 50 seconds.
On the medal table, Saint Lucia finished 14 overall with two golds. England led the medal count with 23 gold, 16 silver and 12 bronze (51). Second was Australia with 14 gold, 14 silver and 11 bronze (39), third New Zealand with 8 gold, 14 silver and 9 bronze (31).
Jamaica finish 12th with 2 gold, 3 silver and 4 bronze (9) and Trinidad and Tobago 13th with 2 gold, 2 silver and 1 bronze (5). They are the only Caribbean islands to finish ahead of Saint Lucia. Host Bahamas finish 16th with 1 gold, 2 silver and 10 bronze (13).
