Atkinson smashes own record at Pan Am Games
ALIA Atkinson smashed her national senior women’s 100m breastroke record yesterday when she clocked 1:09.28 to place second in heat two on day three of the 16th Pan American Games in Guadalajara, Mexico yesterday.
The 22-year-old Atkinson, swimming in lane five, led the first 50 metres in a time of 32.22 seconds before American Ashley Wanland pipped her at the end to post 1:09.26.
Erasing her old mark of 1:09.91 set last June, Atkinson was scheduled to contest the 100m breaststroke A final at 7:49 last night with at least a bronze medal in her grasp.
Another swimmer hoping to be on the women’s 100m breaststroke medal podium is American Ann Chandler, second at the US National Championships last August. She timed 1:09.57 in her heat yesterday.
The Games record is 1:07.78, established by Canadian Annamay Pierse in Brazil in 2007.
In mixed doubles, the badminton pair of Gareth Henry and Mikaylia Haldane’s went down in the quarter-finals to Howard Bach and Paula Obanana of the United States in a match lasting 14 minutes. The Americans won 21-9, 21-11 and will secure a medal.
Charles Pyne, who is aiming for gold in the men’s singles of the badminton, had his match rescheduled from Sunday night to last night where a win over the eighth-seeded Alex Tjong of Brazil would guarantee him at least a bronze medal.
On Sunday night, Mikaylia Haldane and Katherine Wynter set out well in the badminton women’s doubles when they took the first set 21-17, but fell short in the other two, 21-17, 21-14, to Orosameli Cabrera and Veronica Vivieca of the Dominican Republic in the round of 16.
In the men’s doubles, Henry and Pyne foundered in the first round to Americans Howard Bach and Tony Gunawan, who won 21-12, 21-5 in just 12 minutes.
With the Pan-American Games athletics programme set for next Monday, the first of two batches of Jamaica’s track and field athletes will leave the island this evening.
For departure are Olivia McKoy, Rushell Clayton, Kimberly Williamson, Ornelia Livingstone, Omar Johnson, Jermaine Hamilton, Jason Livermore, Lansford Spence, with masseuse Nathaniel Davis.
