SVG’s Rio Olympics sojourn ends

St Vincent and the Grenadines’ (SVG) sojourn to the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, has ended.

The last of the hopefuls, Kineke Alexander, exited the first round of the women’s 400m last Saturday. Alexander ended at the back of the pack in seventh place in heat five, as she produced a below par 52.45 seconds.

Her effort was some distance away from her personal best of 51.81 seconds.{{more}}

Before Alexander, Brandon Valentine-Parris timed 47.62 seconds in the men’s 400m, as he placed seventh in heat number one on Friday, the opening day of the Track and Field events. This did not take him any further and fell below his best effort to date, 47.06.

Valentine-Parris ran alongside reigning world champion Wayde van Niekerk, who finished first in the preliminary round.

First to don the SVG’ colours in competition at the Games was Shne Joachim on Sunday, August 7. Joachim, who competed in heat two of the Women’s 100m breaststroke, finished seventh in a time of 1 minute 17.37 seconds.

This placed her 38th overall of the 44 competitors who were listed in the event.

However, Joachim’s effort was outside her personal best as she had timed 1 minute 14.64 seconds at the Caribbean Islands Swimming Championships (CISC), which was staged in The Bahamas June 29 to July 3.That CISC performance gained her a bronze medal.

And, what can be considered SVG’s best effort at the Rio Olympic Games must have come from swimmer, Nikolas Sylvester. He took the top position in his heat of the Men’s 50 metre freestyle on Thursday.

Sylvester registered a time of 25.64 seconds, which now stands as his personal best, erasing his previous fastest, that of 25.87 seconds.

In Sylvester’s heat, he was ahead of Burkina Faso’s Tindwende Thierry Sawadogo in second place at 26:38 and Niger’s Albachir Mouctar in third with a time of 26:56.

His new mark was still not good enough for him to advance. Sylvester finished 61st of the 85 competitors.(RT)