… French Guiana end with 200 points; Guyana grab 16 medals to finish third

GUYANA’S Britany van Lange collected another two gold medals from her performances in the Girls 19-and-under 100m and 200m freestyle events at the Inter-Guiana Games yesterday, as Guyana finished third in the swimming division of the multisport event. 

As the swimming segment concluded yesterday at the National Aquatic Centre, Guyana closed with 146 points in third place, while French Guiana’s 200 points placed them in second spot.
Swimming powerhouse nation Suriname finished eight points ahead of French Guiana to emerge as the swimming champions at the Games, in which the countries also vied against each other in track and field and basketball.
Guyana ended with an overall 16 medals – four gold, four silver and eight bronze – of which eight were garnered last Friday on the opening day of the competition.
Olympian van Lange, who had gleaned Guyana’s first gold medal on Friday, added two gold to her coffer after clocking 1:01.36s and 2:21.33s in the 100m and 200m freestyle respectively.
The Goodwill Swimming Championships gold medallist overtook Suriname’s Chantell Peiter who clung to second place off a 1:04.36s finish barely surpassing the 1:04.77s achieved by her compatriot Gabrielle Breidel for third place.
In the 200m freestyle, van Lange proved to be more than French Guiana’s Leane Lopez could handle. Lopez finished three seconds behind van Lange clocking 2:24.39s, while Breidel took another third place with 2:31.70s.
Complementing the two gold medals achieved by van Lange was the silver in the 19-and-under Boys 200m freestyle where Omar Adams clocked 2:14.42s to beat French Guiana’s Joris Tarcy into third place. Adams was overpowered only by Suriname’s Yael Tjouw who finished the race in 2:04.41s.
Another silver medal came when Guyana Girls, anchored by van Lange, finished second in the 50m freestyle relay, clocking 1:59.30s. Her team mates were the Girls 100m breaststroke bronze medallist Sanmoogan and the 50m backstroke silver medallist Soroya Simmons.
Sanmoogan clocked 1:34.34s in the breaststroke which was won by French Guiana’s Gaelle Tarcy who finished in a time of 1:22.32s. The Girls 50m backstroke was won in 33.71 seconds by Suriname’s Anjali Rahan, while Simmons clocked 34.59 seconds. Guyana also took third spot in the 50m backstroke with Accalia Khan in 35.03 seconds.
Also sharing in the day’s medal haul was Goodwill Swimming Championships silver medallist Hannibal Gaskin, who needed 57.71 seconds to take third place in the Boys 100m freestyle. Gaskin was also part of the Boys 50m freestyle relay team who finished third in 1:49.00s.

(By Tamica Garnett)