Aliann Pompey, advanced to the second round of the 400-metre event at the 2002 Commonwealth Games, currently underway in Manchester, England.
Theophilus Blue and Rudolph Fraser (boxing) failed to get past the first round of competition, as did Luke Fraser, Regan Pollard and Garfield Wiltshire (Squash) in the men’s individual competition.
Results of local squash ‘Queen’ Nicolette Fernandes’ first round match, was unavailable up to press time.
According to the Commonwealth Games’ website Pompey who contested heat two, placed third in a time of 52.88 seconds which was the third fastest time of all the heats. Her heat was won by Jamaica’s Allison Beckford (52.29) while Bahamas’ Christine Amertil was second in 52.64 seconds.
Blue lost his heavyweight bout to Canada’s J. Douglas but no scores were available, while Rudolph Fraser lost by a slim 11-12 margin to Lesotho’s T. Ntjena.
In squash results, Luke Fraser lost his first round match by a 1-3 margin (9-7, 7-9, 0-9, 7-9) to Northern Ireland’s S. Richardson, while Pollard lost to Pakistan’s M. Zaman 1-9, 0-9, 0-9 and Wiltshire went down to Malaysia’s Ma Iskandar 0-9, 1-9, 0-9. Pompey is slated to contest round two today at the City of Manchester Stadium.
Other qualifiers for the second round of the women’s 400-metre include; Jamaica’s Ronetta Smith who won heat one yesterday in 52.92 seconds and Sandie Richards who registered 53.24 seconds in winning her heat as well as Wales’ Catherine Murphy who won her heat in 53.09 seconds.
Pompey, a semi-finalist at last year’s World Champion-ships in Canada, recorded her personal best time of 51.69 seconds for the 400-metre, at the Harry Jerome Classic meet in Canada, during the month of June 2002 and will be hoping to regain that form today.
Guyana’s two-man rifle team - Ransford Goodluck and Mahendra Persaud - will begin their medal quest today at the Bisley, Surrey Rifle Ranges, when the pairs competition gets underway from 6am local time.
Both Goodluck and Persaud have been in fine form recently, having just come off the Queen’s Golden Jubilee meet at the same venue (Bisley). At that meet, Goodluck recorded 222 points with 21 V’s in capturing the LVA Communications `O’ Class title. Goodluck carted off 23 bronze bars at the meet while Persaud captured 16.
Guyana first participated in the Commonwealth Games in 1934 as British Guiana and have so far contested a total 13 Games, during which, local athletes have won 13 medals (including two gold medals) in a range of events.
Guyana was last represented at the Games in 1998 by a seven-member team.