Alia Atkinson cops silver in 100m breaststroke
ALIA Atkinson failed to add to the silver medal she won in the women’s 100m breaststroke on Friday night after she finished eighth in the 200m individual medley as the swimming portion of Pan American Games in Toronto, Canada ended yesterday.
Atkinson, who was in her third individual final, clocked two minutes, 18.02 seconds well behind American Caitlin Leverenz, who set a new Pan-American Games record two minutes, 10.51 seconds to take the gold.
Earlier in the preliminaries, she was second in her heat in two minutes, 15.16 seconds, beaten by Canadian Erika Seltenreich-Hodgson’s 2 minutes 14.02 seconds.
Twenty-four hours earlier she had won Jamaica’s first medal of the 2015 staging and her second to open Jamaica’s medal account at the Pan-American Games.
The Olympic Games finalist swam one minute, 06.59 seconds to lower her three-year-old national record after leading at the turn in 30.81 seconds, but was beaten to the wall by American Katie Meili, who won with one minute, 06.26 seconds, after setting the Pan-Am Games record 1.05.64 minutes in the preliminaries.
Canadian Rachel Nicol, who had beaten Atkinson in the preliminaries on Friday morning, was third in one minute, 09.91 seconds.
Also last night, Jamaica’s 4x100m medley relay team also made it to their final after placing seventh in their heat in four minutes, 24.18 seconds with the team of Atkinson, Danielle Boothe, Trudian Patrick and Breanna Roman.
Meanwhile, in the third round of the men’s individual golf event, Ian Facey had yet another disappointing outing, carding a four over par 76, shooting an eight on the par four 18th hole after he seemed set for a good score.
Despite yesterday being his best score after rounds of five over par 77 on Thursday and eight over 80 on Friday, he is 30th in the 32-man field on a three-round score of 17 over par 233.
The 21-year-old started yesterday well and was two under par 34 at the turn with back-to-back birdies on the third and fourth holes.
He, however, boogied the 11th and 12th holes as well as the 14th, managed to get a stroke back with his only birdie on the back nine on the 15th hole but imploded on the final hole.