Jamaica out of the blocks as Atkinson mines silver
Gold Coast , Australia — It took Jamaica just two days to claim their first medal at these Commonwealth Games, as flag bearer Alia Atkinson won a silver medal in the final of the women’s 50m breaststroke, the same as she did four years ago in Scotland.
Amidst high expectations and loud cheers from a partisan crowd, there in full support for hometown favourite Leiston Pickett, Atkinson was out of the blocks with a good reaction time. She used her power and strength to surge to the front with less than half the race completed in a quality field.
She continued to lead the race and appeared set to claim the elusive gold medal before Sarah Vasey of England produced a late surge in the final few strokes to touch the wall first in 30.60 seconds. Atkinson was second in 30.76 seconds, and Pickett third in 30.78 seconds.
The veteran swimmer admitted to nerves playing a part in the race, in which she was heavily favoured to take gold.
“I think I wasn’t as relaxed as I was in the semi-finals and I think because of that I jeopardised the race, going for speed instead of distance, so I wasn’t getting as far out per stroke as I was for the semi-finals and I think that just added on a little bit more time,” Atkinson said.
The Sunshine Girls made it two wins from as many starts as they overcame a plucky South Africa to win by 11 in the end.
Coming off a totally one-sided win over Fiji in their first encounter, Jamaica appeared to be in a relaxed mood against a much more dangerous opponent. South Africa took the lead early in the first quarter and never relented as they led 15-10 at the end of the first 15-minute period.
The Proteas continued to play strong before the Jamaican team finally responded late in the second quarter to pull level with the final shot of the half, to leave the scores at 22 a piece at the halfway point.
Spurred on by their impressive first- half performance, the South Africans started the third quarter the same way they started the match and surged to a five-point lead at 35-30. The difference in the second half however would be the presence of team captain Jhaniele Fowler-Reid, who made her presence felt after watching the first half from the bench.
Fowler-Reid, who scored and impressive 29 goals from 31 attempts in just the second half, took the game by the scruff of the neck and dragged her team to within one point of South Africa at the end of the third quarter, with the scores read, 38-37 with 15 minutes left to play.
The last quarter belonged to the Jamaican captain as she lifted her team to a 57-46 win. Her final shot of the game brought the house down as she let fly a one-handed shot that looked more like a basketball shot than one from netball.
It was the end of the road for Jamaica in squash as both men who had made history by advancing to the round of 16 on Thursday found the going much tougher on Friday and lost in straight sets. Lewis Walters, who played first on the day, went down 11-3, 11-4, 11-8 to Australia’s Cameron Pilley, while Chris Binnie was defeated 11-4, 11-5, 11-2 by Joel Makin of Wales.
It was a great day for badminton as Jamaica defeated Zambia 5-0. The mixed pair of Alana Bailey and Anthony McNee got Jamaica off to a good start when they defeated Everlyn Stamupangila and Chonga Mulenga. Samuel Ricketts got the better of Kalombo Mulenga to make it 2-0 to Jamaica before Jamaica’s female number one Katherine Wynter defeated Ogar Stamupangila to effectively win the tie for Jamaica.
The male pair of McNee and Dennis Coke then took match four by defeating the Mulenga brothers before the women’s pair of Wynter and Bailey completed the rout when they beat the Stamupangila sisters.
In lawn bowls the pair of Mervyn Edwards and Andrew Newell continued to find the going tough, as they were outdone by the South African pair of Petrus Brettenbach and Jason Evans 28-6 for their second loss in as many days.
There was disappointment in track and field even before the competition got started, as medal hopeful Julian Forte had to withdraw from the Games due to injury. He will be replaced by Nigel Ellis. There will be further updates on the Forte story.