By Neto Baptiste
Sailor Jalese Gordon continued her quest at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games on Monday when she competed on day two of the Women’s One Person Dinghy Laser competition in Enoshima, Japan.
The 19-year-old first time Olympian however, did not see much improvement in terms of her overall position in the competition as she, once again, finished in the bottom half of the standings in her two races.
Gordon finished 42nd from a fleet of 43 competitors in her first race of the day but was faced with the added pressure of having to battle slightly above normal winds brought on by typhoon In-fa which was slated to impact Eastern Japan on late Sunday going into Monday.
Meanwhile, in her second race on Monday, Gordon finished 43rd from amongst 44 competing sailors.
On Sunday’s opening day Gordon finished 43 from 43 participants in her second race after having ended her previous outing of the day at 42nd from a fleet of 44 sailors.
In boxing, the country’s lone competitor, Alston Ryan, was unsuccessful in his bid to get to the next round after going under to the European Light Welter champion Hovhannes Bachkov of Armenia in their round of 36 Men’s Light (57-63kg) match on Sunday.
National Hero and one of four knighted former West Indies cricketers here, Sir Vivian Richards, heralded the efforts thus far of all athletes currently flying the country’s flag in Tokyo.
“You know the best things about watching that match in itself and most of the boxing matches that we would have seen is the Antiguan flag flying at the top and that’s the positive thing about it. Forget about the loss because that was the most positive thing and if at all, Alston Ryan and the rest of the crew weren’t in Tokyo at that particular time then I guess we won’t be seeing our flag flying on an international stage as regular as it did last night so let us take the positives out of it,” he said.
Men’s swimmer, Stefano Mitchell will compete in Heat 3 of the 100m freestyle on Tuesday while on July 30, Samantha Roberts swim in Heat 5 of the Women’s 50m freestyle.