TRINIDAD and Tobago Special Olympians have returned home victorious after competing in eight disciplines at the 2015 Special Olympics World Summer Games.
The athletes won a total of 48 medals—15 gold, nine silver and 24 bronze with (18) 4th place, three 5th place, seven 6th place, two 7th place and one 8th place ribbon.
The delegation comprised 64 people with 20 coaches and three officials. The athletes competed in aquatics, athletics, basketball,
bocce, equestrian, football, power lifting and volleyball.
The world games was held in Los Angeles, California, from July 25 to August 2 with approximately 7,000 participants from 177 countries.
In 2011, the T&T team captured 15 Gold, 15 Silver and eight Bronze medals.
The aquatics team struck gold on day one of the competition. Swimmers Nikolai Lalla finished his 50 metre breaststroke in 38.43 seconds, Jariah Walker finished his 25 metre backstroke in 23.23 seconds and Chavez Lamy in 16.85 seconds. Shania Surujbally and Jaleel Pierre won ribbons. Stefan Singh won silver in the 1,500 metre Open Water Swim, which was the first time this competition was held at Special Olympics.
On Day 2 the Bocce team also claimed gold victory. Bocce is a sport resembling lawn bowling.
Athletes Renee Massiah, Alicia Khan, Colin Duncan and Kerry James teamed up to win silver medals.
The football team was successful in defeating Canada, Barbados, Costa Rica, Switzerland, St Vincent and the Grenadines and Hong Kong.
Power-lifting champion Nicholas Mc Knight won a silver (in Benach Press with 67.5 kilogrammes) and three bronze medals in Squat (65.5 kg), Dead Lift (105 Kg) and Combine Lifts (240Kg). Damian Marquis got silver in squat and combination lift, bronze in bench press and 4th in dead lift. Malachi Sylvester got a bronze in bench press, squat, dead lift and combination loft.
Joanne Piango won gold scoring 53 points in the Equestrian English Equitation competition while Aaron Ben Ali won bronze with 48 points.
In athletics Donelle Walkes ran the 200m in 34.72 seconds to capture a Gold Medal. Yetendra Sing and Ishmael Perpignac won 7th place ribbons in their 400 metre races. Donal Doyle took 8th place ribbons in the 200 metre race. In the “Softball Throw”, which is an adaptation of the “Shot-put”, Salina Lennard won Gold with a throw of 9.97m Rosanna Gebodh also won Gold with a throw of 6.40m, while Tmeyon Logie capturing a Silver Medal with a throw of 14.46m and Jade Ramkawalsingh threw 11.82m to capture a Bronze Medal.
The basketball team captured the bronze medal while the volley team copped 4th place.
Proud parent Lee-Anthony Walker, Jariah Walker's father said he was proud of his son and his accomplishments in making his mark in the world games.