WITH two silver and a bronze medals, Linden’s Daniel Williams prevailed as the most successful athlete of the four who represented Guyana at the South American Youth Championships in Concordia, Argentina, last weekend, where Tyrell Peters and CARIFTA Games bronze medallist Chantoba Bright also medalled. Despite battling the challenge of coping with the constantly fluctuating temperature of Argentina’s climate and tough competition from the Brazil team, the Guyana team managed to perform remarkably well, with Bright finishing third in the Girls’ long jump and Peters also earning a bronze.
The three medals allowed Williams to take up podium position in all of his events, namely the Boys’ 200m, 400m and high jump.
In the 200m Williams clocked 22.11 seconds for the bronze, unable to beat Brazil’s Moraes Vinicius (21.41s) and Junior Cleverson (21.93s).
Only Brazil’s Da Silva Bruno’s 48.12 seconds finish was better than the 48.57 seconds Daniel clocked in the 400m. In the high jump Daniel cleared 2 metres, ending behind Chile’s Francisco Moraga who also had 2 metres.
In spite of gaining medals, some of the athletes were not altogether happy with their performances, which they said were severely affected by the climate conditions.
“It was hard to get warm, you weren’t sweating, you would be warming up, warming up but you weren’t sweating you were just getting tired. And as soon as I took off my sweater to go jump I got cold right away,” said Bright, on her return to Guyana last Tuesday morning. Bright took a best leap of 5.96m for her bronze. This was an improvement of the 5.77m she performed last month at the Inter-Guiana Games, but still below her target of keeping her jumps above 6m which she had been clearing earlier this year.
The event was won by Columbia’s Andrea Quinto with a jump of 6.13 metres. In the triple jump Bright finished fourth with 12.29m, in an event where the win again went to Columbia, this time through Marcela Cuesta who leaped 13.20m.
Tyrell Peters was in the 100m and 200m, managing to grab silver in the 100m after a 10.68 seconds run in the final, bettering the 10.87 seconds he had in the heats. However, he ended fifth in the 200m off a time of 22.47 seconds.
“I wasn’t satisfied with my timings because my personal best is 21.40 (seconds) and I ran 22.47 (seconds), so I’m not proud of that performance. But the climate was real bad, because it was like hot at one point and then really cold at other points, we had to just constantly adjust to whatever we had,” Peters told Chronicle Sport.
Battling illness, compounded by the climate, sprinter Kenisha Phillips was the only athlete who was unable to medal. Phillips was in the Girls’ 100m and 200m; finishing fifth in the 100m final in 12.13 seconds and fourth in the 200m with 25.12 seconds.