Tuesday 8th September 2015. The second day of competition at the Commonwealth Youth Games was a day of personal best times for the swimmers at the Tuana’imato Sports Facility in Samoa. On Jeron's first event for the morning, he completed the 50m backstroke in 29.01 which was just enough to qualify for the B Final later that evening. “I slipped on the touch pad but shook it off and completed 0.5 seconds slower than my personal best,” he stated. But despite not attaining a personal best in the heats, young Jeron was determined to swim 28.0 in the B Final. Later that evening, Jeron went on to complete the swim in 28.71, finishing in 11th place overall.
In his second event, he was able to attain a personal best time after he swam 1:07.83 in the Men's 100m breaststroke. However, he was disqualified on completion of the event. Jeron stated that in his breaststroke event he did 1.05 seconds better, to gain a new personal best of 1:07.83.
Amira Pilgrim also swam a personal best time of 59.45 in Women's 100m Freestyle. “I was happy with my swim, there were a few technical errors that will be corrected for my swim (B Final) later today,” she explained. Amira further stated that she paced off the athlete next to her in lane 3 who finished in 3rd place position in the heat. In the B Final, Amira improved on her earlier time by finishing 11th overall with a time of 59.35.
Akanni had a disappointing end to the Commonwealth Youth Games after he false started in the boys 200m heats. "I'm disappointed since I knew I could have done well, based on the results of all the heats", he said. However, he looks forward to treating his injury when he returns home from Samoa. Akanni unfortunately succumbed to an injury after running the 100m heats on his first day of competition (7th Sept) and opted out of running the semi – finals.
Later this afternoon, Akidah Briggs will kick things off for Team TTO in the girls shot put event. While Jeron is carded to compete in the 50m breaststroke and 100m butterfly and Amira will compete in 50m Breaststroke.