Sports
Track athletes finish Commonwealth run
(CIOC): A number of Cayman athletes wrapped up their sojourn in Scotland. Gymnast Bethany Dikau, 17, finished 37th out of 40 athletes in the artistic gymnastics event. For the floor segment, Dikau had a score of 10.766 points and registered 11 points in the vault, 7.666 points in the uneven bars and 9.466 points on the balance beam for an all-around score of 38.898. Each apparatus carried a maximum of 15 points, with 60 points being the overall top score. Dikau, the first gymnast in Cayman’s history to compete at the Games, said she certainly felt the scale of the competition.
“I was definitely nervous but I was more excited so I had a lot more energy,” Dikau said. “I think that overtook my nervousness. I just took it skill by skill and then after I was done, I was relieved that I was done. But it went well so it was exciting.”
On the track, most of Cayman’s athletes failed to advance beyond the preliminary stages. Hurdler Ronald Forbes was fifth in his 110m hurdles heat, posting a time of 13.89 seconds. Ashleigh Nalty finished 11th in her high jump group with a leap of 1.71 meters – her best mark of the season.
Carlos Morgan was eighth in group A of the long jump with a leap of 7.41m, while twin brother Carl Morgan was 11th in group B of the long jump with a mark of 6.99m. Tyrell Cuffy finished fifth in heat seven of the 200m with a time of 21.75 seconds and David Hamil placed seventh in heat nine of the 200m at 22.02 seconds.
Earlier in the week, sprinter Kemar Hyman offered a bright spot by advancing to the semis of the 100m. He would place sixth in his heat with a time of 10.31 seconds. He previously won his preliminary race in a time of 10.20 seconds.
Off the track, the shooting team wrapped up its Scotland performance. Chris Jackson, 47, was 20th in round one of the trap event, nailing 42 out of 50 clay targets. In round two, he would place 29th after hitting 55 out of 75 targets.
Over on the squash courts, the doubles event went into its second day. On the men’s side, Julian Jervis and Myron Blair started out by losing to India before beating Uganda. For the mixed doubles, Cameron Stafford and Marlene West lost to Australia before beating Zambia while Daniel Murphy and Eilidh Bridgeman lost to Malaysia before beating Papua New Guinea.
Ebanks decisioned in the quarterfinals
(CIOC): Tafari Ebanks gave a memorable showing for Cayman Islands boxing in Glasgow but his XX Commonwealth career came to an end earlier today. Ebanks, 20, advanced to the quarter-finals of the bantam (56 kilograms) weight class with a first round bye before beating 20-year-old Henry Umings of Papua New Guinea by second round TKO. His successful start didn’t follow him into the semis, however, where Ebanks dropped a unanimous decision to 29-year-old Benson Gicharu Njangiru, with each of the three judges scoring 29-28 in favor of the Kenyan.
The West Bayer started slowly, as Njangiru won the first two rounds by scores of 10-9 each time, before winning the final three-minute round 10-9. Ebanks says the fight did not show him at his best.
“It went extremely well but my performance wasn’t up to standard to how I wanted to make it,” Ebanks said. “It was a really close fight. I lost but I know I could have done better within myself. I got a lot to think about.”
Cayman’s national boxing coach, Norman Wilson, was in Ebanks’ corner for both fights. Wilson said the quarterfinal loss was a result of Ebanks not having enough heart.
“As the fight was going on, for some reason, I saw him a little lackadaisical,” Wilson said. “I told him he wasn’t in the fight in the first round. You have to win the first round; you have to because that sparks the judges. When the judges see you owning it that sparks them. He got hit with some shots that he isn’t supposed to get hit with. I told him when came to the corner, ‘you’re not in the fight, where are you?’ Then he picked it up a little bit in the second but not enough. He took the last round, but that isn’t good enough.”
“It’s him. See, if you know how to do everything and get in the ring and don’t do it, we can’t say it’s your jab or your guard; it’s you. You have to have that desire to be able to say, ‘I’m going to win.’ You got toknow how to win. Winning isn’t just getting in the ring, looking pretty, moving pretty. You got to fight.”
Swim team not sunk by missing treasure
(CIOC): They were touted as a group most likely to medal in Glasgow, but the Cayman Islands swimming team will be coming home empty-handed. Cayman wrapped up its aquatics portion of the XX Commonwealth Games in Scotland with no medals. With a team consisting of Geoffrey Butler, Lara Butler, David Ebanks, Brett Fraser, Lauren Hew and Alex McCallum which boasts an impressive collective resume that includes Olympic appearances, Island Games and CARIFTA swim championship medals, the lack of hardware this time around is surprising.
The history books will show Fraser, 24, produced the best results with a fifth place finish in the 50 meter butterfly finals and a berth in the 50m freestyle semi-finals, where he ended up seventh in his heat. Fraser, whose competition including athletes such as Olympian Chad le Clos of South Africa, says losing at thislevel is no disgrace. Certainly, it’s hard to argue against that.
“It’s just a matter of I’ve known these guys for a while, I’ve been racing them for a while,” Fraser said. “Everyone’s done their training, it’s fun to compete against these guys. I see it as more of an opportunity to just race and get better.”
After starring alongside his older brother Shaune at the 2008 and 2012 Olympics, Fraser barely fell short of the podium spotlight. Fraser finished fifth in the 50m fly final in a time of 23.66 seconds, just behind England’s Adam Barrett (23.43 seconds), bronze medalist le Clos (23.36 seconds), silver medalist Roland Schoeman of South Africa (23.13 seconds) and gold medalist Benjamin Proud of England, whose time of 22.93 seconds also set a new Games record. In the 50m free, Fraser would finish fourth in his preliminary heat with a mark of 22.79 seconds before posting a time of 22.87 seconds in the semis.
The only other swimmer to reach the latter stages of competition would be Hew, Cayman’s youngest Games participant at 14 years old. She would place sixth in the 100m backstroke at 1:07.34 and be listed as a reserve for the semis and end up eighth in the 200m back at 2:27.16 before finishing fifth in the 50m back heats at 30.55 seconds and seventh in the semis at 31.08 seconds. Prior to the 50m back semis, Hew said her team mates motivated her to perform well.
“I’ve been training quite hard this year and just to be here is pretty amazing,” Hew said. “I think with the atmosphere here I’ve been dropping time because of that, with the crowd and being part of a team with Brett, who is an Olympian and stuff like that. I think that just made me swim a lot faster.”
Another positive came from David Ebanks, a 32-year-old based out of Essex in England. Despite placing second in the heats of the 100m breaststroke at 1:08.36, he missed out on the semis due to his time. From there, he would finish sixth in the 50m breaststroke with a mark of 30.04 seconds.
On the flip side, it would seem nerves got the best of three bright Under-21 prodigies in the Butler siblings and McCallum. During his heats, Geoffrey Butler was seventh in the 1500m free at 16:14.39; sixth in the 400m free at 4:06.78 and second in the 200m free at 1:57.13 (he missed out on the semis due to his time).
Geoffrey Butler, 18, said after his 1500m swim that it was a forgettable showing on his part.
“It (the 1500m) was two seconds slower than my best so it was OK,” Geoffrey Butler said. “My best is my best so I can’t be too upset about that. You always want to do better and I only had one personal best this meet so it wasn’t my best meet. I don’t have that many excuses really, there’s no point putting excuses out there. Maybe just train a bit harder next year and hope for the best.”
During her heats, Lara Butler was eighth in the 100m back at 1:08.37, eighth in the 200m Individual Medley at 2:27.49, seventh in the 100m fly at 1:05.69 and seventh in the 200m fly at 2:22.53.Butler, 19, said the spotlight did affect her.
“I’m thinking a lot of it is nerves going in,” Lara Butler said. “People here are like really, really good and tops in the world and in the call room, you seem them all getting ready. It’s cool being able to race them all but it’s scary at the same time.”
During his heats, McCallum was eighth in the 50m back at 28.27 seconds, eighth in the 100m back at 1:01.22 and fifth in the 200m back at 2:13.87. McCallum, 20, revealed after the 200m back that he was not fully fit for his races.
“I just didn’t really feel the water very well,” McCallum said. “I struggled the whole way through. I wasn’t feeling too confident about my swim but oh well, it’s just one of those bad days. You got to get back up and train stronger for next season. It’s my first big competition so I was a bit nervous really. It was one good swim and a couple of bad swims but it’s just another meet and I struggled. Leading up, I was a bit ill before – like three weeks ago. So who knows, if I wasn’t sick it may have been different.”
‘Ritch’ pickings for the falcons
(CTA): Episode 1 of Season Two of Cayman’s own sporting docu-soap drama, Millennium Falcon Cayman Women’s Touch League, opened with a bang as four new teams pitted it out for the title. New plot lines and new characters will no doubt come forth over the course of this event but this time around we are transported to outer space where we have the Millennium Falcons, the Ebon Hawks, Raven’s Claw and the Eagle Transporters vying for intergalactic supremacy. The names have been chosen on a Star Wars theme and the standard of play was certainly out of this world … some might say from a galaxy far far away.
Kindly sponsored by local firm Millennium Entertainment and our good friends at Miller Lite, Women’s Touch League is becoming more popular than a final episode of The Bachelorette. Each team has been selected by a highly detailed algorithmic database to ensure that they would be evenly matched. And so it proved, with the winning margin being by only one try in three out of the four games, the other being a draw!
The Millennium Falcons, who allegedly voted against the shortened acronym of “the MIL-Fs”, have started the season at Light Speed with two wins out of two. In their first game against Ebon Hawks it was Evelin Ritch who nabbed two tries to down the Hawks by 2-1. One of Ritch’s tries involved some excellent foot work side-stepping the defender and then racing to the line. Captain Marida Montgomery was very happy with her team’s performance especially as it is the first time many of these girls have played together. She highlighted the performance of Julia Spurdle and Loletta Hanna in defense as invaluable to the team’s strong performance.
For the Ebon Hawks, notable performances came from Karlie Cross, who scored their only try, and Elena Testori. Both are extremely fast and will be players to watch next time round. Testori is completely new to the game and picked up the subtleties quickly, as did other newbie Roisin Liddy-Murphy. Quincy Clark led the team well, and Lluvia Hirsch and Jacky Rowland were outstanding with their tactical awareness and positioning play helping guide those around them.
On the second pitch, Eagle Transporter soared to a 2-1 victory over Raven’s Claw. Tries from Alison Linley and Sharlee Henshaw were enough to clip the Ravens’ wings, with Jo Remillard scoring their try to make the result in doubt right up to the final whistle.
The two victors from Round 1 met each other in Round 2 and fought out an evenly matched 2-2 draw. Try-machine Emma Santiago opened her account with Loletta Hanna getting the second. Rhian Minty pulled one back for the Eagles and Sharlee Henshaw made it two tries in two games to make the scores tied. Henshaw has the uncanny knack of being at the right place at the right time when it comes to scoring – an invaluable asset for any team. At this level, a high conversion rate of chances to tries is essential, especially when games are inherently tight.
Ebon Hawks beat Ravens Claw 1-0 with a fine Karlie Cross try. That’s two defeats in two for the Ravens but Captain Caroline Deegan was not downhearted. Jodie Hooper had a couple of stand-out matches picking the game up very quickly in her first start and demonstrated some really tenacious defense and showed some serious ball handling skills. Sheleese Green also played well and nearly had two tries herself, one that was finished with a wonderful dive only to be thwarted by a vital late touch before gettingthe ball down. The game of Touch can be a game of inches and on such small margin fortunes can be won or lost.
Forbes and Morgan brothers fail to make grade
(CNS): Ronald Forbes missed out on qualifying Tuesday at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow when Cayman's 110 metre hurdler came in a disappointing 5th place in his heat with a time of 13.89. Carl and Carlos Morgan also failed to advance in the long jump with the brothers leaping 6.99 and 7.41 respectively. However, Team Cayman's athletic hopes are still not finished as both David Hamil and Tyrell Cuffy will run in the men's 200 metre sprint tomorrow in a bid to make it through to the semis. The athletics team will then round up the games with the 4 x 100 metres relay later this week.
For more on the games, results and information log onto www.glasgow.com
Cayman’s Chris Jackson takes final aim in Glasgow
(CNS): As the Cayman Islands shooting team wraps up in Glasgow, they can walk away with guns held high. The clay shooters aim for their final targets in Scotland, at the Commonwealth Games, on July 29. Chris Jackson will compete in day two of the trap qualifiers from 9am Scotland time (3am Cayman time) at the Barry Buddon Shooting Center in Carnoustie. Jackson, 47, is the last of the team members to fire away after Edison ‘Eddie’ McLean and Andrew Schirn (left) got their shots in last week. Schirn, 18, and McLean, 44, both competed in the skeet event but were eliminated in the opening stages. (Photo by Matthew Yates)
“I’ve really enjoyed it so far and I hope to be back in four years,” Schirn said. “At first, it was pretty nerve-racking having cameras videotaping me and having a crowd watching because I never had to do that before. But in the end, it didn’t affect me as much as I thought it would.”
Schirn would finish 21st in the first round of qualifying by nailing 61 of 75 moving targets, before shooting down 42 of 50 targets in the second round, which placed him 18th. McLean, in his fourth Commonwealth Games, used his experience to shoot a score of 65 in round one to place 17th before grabbing fourth place in the second round with a score of 48.
“The weather is constantly changing. In the morning when I started, it was really cold. Then it was close to our climate. It’s hard because then you have to keep adjusting and changing your clothes to meet the climate at the time. I feel it went pretty well, I was aiming to shoot in the 20s constantly throughout the two days and I achieved that. That’s the best I can do so I’m happy with it,” a pleased Schirn said.
The shooters will be among the first athletes to wrap up in Scotland, after getting into Glasgow early. The side arrived before the opening ceremony to familiarize themselves with the shooting range. Organizing the group was team manager Kevin Schirn, Andrew’s dad, who has guided national shooting squads for nearly 15 years.
Kevin Schirn, who had the group competing in the United Kingdom this summer in preparation for the Games, says the team was pleased with the Carnoustie facilities.
“The team was very happy to be at the shooting village in Dundee. The shooters had days of training at the range and reacquainted with friends from previous Games. The organization of the Games was great and the team was pleased with the set-up of the training fields. Our accommodations were very comfortable and training went well.”
Cayman squash team singles results, doubles up next
(CNS): Julian Jervis (16) made it as far as the semi-finals of the squash consolation plate singles event at the XX Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland, but lost to Zambia’s Manda Chilambwe 11-8, 8-11, 11-6, 11-6. The doubles segment goes into action this week, with Jervis returning to the court alongside Myron Blair. Heading into Scotland, expectations were high for Jervis, who won the CASA Junior Championships Under-17 title in Bermuda earlier this month. He lost his first two matches to Chris Simpson of Guernsey (11-7, 11-4, 11-1) and Ravindu Laksiri of Sri Lanka (11-6, 11-3, 11-3) but had two wins over Moreaina Wei of Papua New Guinea (11-2, 11-4, 11-1) and Kevin Hannaway of St. Vincent and the Grenadines (11-1, 14-12, 11-5). (Photo by Mathew Yates)
Jervis said he has been impressed with Scotland and remains confident in his abilities.
“I’m still running off the vibes of winning the junior Caribbean Area Squash Association title,” Jervis said. “The guy I played earlier is a really good player. I still have my confidence because I know I can do better than I did. We’ve been training for three to four months, really intensely for this stuff now so I feel prepared. Glasgow is amazing, the village is great and the facilities are amazing. I couldn’t be happier.”
Jervis also revealed he has been playing through a nagging injury.
“Laksiri ran me to the point where I aggravated my shin, which is a problem that I have quite often. I couldn't really move into the front very well after a while, but he played very well. I was training one day with Cameron and I just think he did the same thing and the same thing happened. When I went to physio they told me it’s because I have a really tight calf, which makes me not able to bring my feet up enough. It forces me to use muscles in my shin a lot more. It happens all the time now and I’ve been dealing with it for over a year.”
Another highly touted player for Cayman, Cameron Stafford, had mixed results. On his first day, he would defeat Christian Navas of Gibraltar 11-2, 11-5 and 11-3 before losing to Botswana’s Alister Walker 11-3, 11-4, 11-5. He would then make the classic plate quarterfinals, where he would lose to Scotsman Kevin Moran 11-13, 11-5, 8-11, 11-5, 16-14. As Stafford tackles the mixed doubles with Marlene West, he says he is motivated to post better results.
“I’m trying to redeem myself and get my confidence back,” Stafford said. “I go on to the doubles matches with Marlene and we take on two former world champions on the glass court. Marlene and I have never played on a glass court with each other so it’s a whole new experience. I’m healthy but there is a little tweak in both of my calves. I’m stretching, running, covering with a lot of cold ice baths. I’m moving well, playing well but getting the experience against these top players is what I need. You don’t get to play against the top players in the world every day. I get to train with upcoming juniors like Julian all the time so it’s about getting that exposure really.”
Cayman had two other players in the singles event. Daniel Murphy lost all three of his matches, falling to Kenya’s Hartaj Bains 11-7, 11-4, 11-6; Uganda’s Michael Kawooya 11-2, 11-5, 11-2 and Zambia’s Chilambwe 11-9, 11-5, 11-6. Eilidh Bridgeman lost to Wee Worn Low of Malaysia 11-1, 11-2, 11-2 and Vanessa Florens of Mauritius 11-6, 11-1, 11-5. Murphy says while his results were discouraging, he intends to keep battling.
“It was hard to adjust to the courts but overall I thought I played alright,” Murphy said. “I’m going to just try and play my best, stay on court as long as possible with the professionals. I’ll give my all and that’s all I can do really.” Murphy will be teaming up with Bridgeman in the mixed doubles event. Bridgeman says at times she felt outclassed.
“I played No. 5 in the world so it was really tough playing Low,” Bridgeman said. “Obviously, there’s not much you can do against someone who is that good. But I think she was quite nice at keeping the rallies going. I was just running and running and that’s all I could really do. A lot of the players here are so strong that you’re going to meet someone very strong, very quickly. So really, as soon as you go on against someone like that you’re not going to get the chance to do it again so you have to make the most of it.”
Cayman boxer fights through in games debut
(CNS): Tafari Ebanks fought his way to the boxing bantamweight quarterfinals in Glasgow yesterday beating Papua New Guinea’s Henry Umings with a technical knockout in the second round to advance to the next stage of the competition keeping his medal dreams alive in his Commonwealth Games debut. While Kemar Hyman missed the 100m sprint finals on the track as his semi-finals time was too slow, Tuesday, Brett Fraser also ended his swimming competition when he failed to make the freestyle 50m finals. Fourteen year old Lauren Hew however had a great competition making it through to swim in the semi-finals of the 50m backstroke in the teen's first ever Commonwealth Games.
The squash team had some players advance and Cameron Stafford went through to the Classic Plate Quarterfinal Round but was beaten in an exciting game with the host nation's Kevin Moran.
Eilidh Bridgeman advanced to the Women’s Plate quarterfinals, but was beaten by Mauritius’ Vanessa Florens. Julian Jervis hit through to the Consolation Plate semifinals before falling to Zambia’s Manda Chilambwe, 3-1. Chalambwe also dispatched Daniel Murphy 3-0 in their Consolation Plate quarterfinals meeting.
Today Bethany Dikau will continue her efforts in the gymnastic competition, while Ronald Forbes takes to the track for the 110 metre hurdles. Meanwhile the Morgan brothers will begin their competition on the field in the men's long jump.
Hyman wins 100m heat, ready for semis
(CNS): Kemar Hyman streaked down the track, Sunday to win his heat in the men's 100m sprint and set himself up for this evenings semi-finals at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow at 7-30pm UK time. The sprinter will be running in lane 4 looking for a place in the final of what is always one of the most exciting events at international meets. Meanwhile, Brett Fraser missed the medal podium in the men's 50m butterfly final when he finished 5th, clocking 23:66, Friday evening. However, the 24 year old swimmer made it through his 50m freestyle heat today with a time of 22:29 11th overall, setting himself up for another shot at a medal.
He told Cayman's pool sports reporter, Matthew Yates that he was upbeat about his chances in the 50 meter freestyle and not too disappointed about the butterfly.
“It’s always nice to medal and be on the podium,” Fraser said. “But not medaling serves as motivation for me to continue to train that much harder and strive to be there at the next competition. I thought it went pretty well. Right now, I can’t really think of too many things that I did incorrectly. When I came into the warmups, we ran through the race, simulated it a few times and it went just as smoothly as we had practiced. I’m very happy with that swim.”
Although Geoffrey Butler was second in his 200m freestyle race with a personal best his time of 1:57.13 was not fast enough to qualify. Coming in 7th in his heat in a time of 16:14:39 for the 1500m freestyle Butler also failed to qualify in that event.
Speaking about Friday Butler noted he knocked over a second of his best time. “I went out strong and just tried to hold on tofinish the swim, it was good. My main event will be the one on Monday so we’ll see how that will go," he told Yates.
Ebanks, based out of Essex in England, also missed out on the semis due to his time which was still a lifetime best.
Lauren Hew, qualified for the 50m backstroke semis in a time of 30:55 and will have to give it all shes got this evening if she is to make it to the finals. Cayman’s youngest athlete had also made the reserve list for the 100m back semis, which she says was a great accomplishment.
“It was just a bit over my Personal Best,” Hew said. “I was pretty nervous but I think for my first race at such a big competition is pretty good. I was training at Loughborough University for a couple days and then I got into the village and started training in this pool. I’ve never been in such an amazing pool so it was really good to train here and I felt really good coming into the competition.
Chris Jackson will compete in day two of the trap qualifiers tomorrow at the Barry Buddon Shooting Center in Carnoustie. Jackson, 47, is the last of the team members to fire after Edison ‘Eddie’ McLean and Andrew Schirn got their shots in last week. Schirn, 18, and McLean, 44, both competed in the skeet event but were eliminated in the opening stages. Schirn says his first Games experience was positive.
“I’ve really enjoyed it so far and I hope to be back in four years,” Schirn who finished 18th said to the pool reporter. “At first, it was pretty nerve-racking having cameras videotaping me and having a crowd watching because I never had to do that before. But in the end, it didn’t affect me as much as I thought it would.”
McLean, at his fourth Commonwealth Games, got fourth place in the second round with a score of 48.
“The team was very happy to be at the shooting village in Dundee,” Kevin Schirn Andrew's father who coaches the shooting team said. “The shooters had days of training at the range and reacquainted with friends from previous Games. The organization of the Games was great and the team was pleased with the set-up of the training fields. Our accommodations were very comfortable and training went well.”
For full results and team Cayman's events visit http://results.glasgow2014.com/nations.htmlasgow
Fraser makes line up for 50M fly final
(CNS): With a time of 23:96 Brett Fraser has scraped into the mens 50 metre Butterfly final at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. Fraser nabbed the last spot in the final and will be swimming for a chance to make the podium at 7pm in Scotland (1pm Cayman time). Geoffrey Butler will also take to the Tollcross pool this morning (Friday 25 July) when he swims in heat 2 of the 200 metre men's freestyle, while his sister Laura will be swimming in the women's 100m backstroke. David Ebanks will swim in the heats for the men's 100m breast stroke, while 14 year old Lauren Hew will be compete in the women's 100m backstroke heats. (Brett Fraser left, photo by Matthew Yates)
For results and more details of the games visit: http://www.glasgow2014.com