The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

TEAM Bahamas will leave Toronto, Canada after adding a bronze medal - with the possibility of another medal in the balance - on the final day of the athletic competition on Saturday night at the 1th Pan American Games. The Bahamas is currently sitting in 17th place overall in the medal haul with a total of six, including two gold, two silver and two bronze.

Originally, the men's 4 x 400 metres relay team dropped from first to fourth place after Jeffery Gibson started to cramp up in the final 100 metres on the anchor leg. In the final 50m, he continued to fade and was passed by Trinidad and Tobago, Cuba and the United States of America in that order.

A protest was lodged by the team manager, who indicated that they were successful after it was discovered that Cuba didn't submit its team properly. However, the results posted still have the Bahamas team of LaToy Williams, Michael Mathieu, Alonzo Russell and Gibson in fourth place after running three minutes and 0.21 seconds. The medals were not given out at the end of the night, due to the protest lodged by the Bahamas.

Also on Saturday, Donald Thomas fell short of repeating as the Pan Am champion in the men's high jump. But he got the bronze behind a Canadian sweep with 2.28 metres or 7-feet, 5 3/4-inches. National champion Ryan Ingraham was sixth with 2.25m (7-4 1/2).

The women's 4 x 400m relay team didn't get on the podium, but the quartet of Lanece Clarke, Christine Amertil, Carmiesha Cox and Katrina Seymour ran 3:31.60 for fifth place, which turned out to be the 15th fastest time in the world. That secured the Bahamas' berth in the IAAF World Championships next month in Beijing, China with the men's 4 x 400m team. The women's 4 x 100 team of Devynne Charlton, Sheniqua 'Q' Ferguson, Tayla Carter and Adanaca Brown was seventh in 44.38. The team is still waiting to see if they qualify.

The men's 4 x 100m was the only team not to advance to the final and will be automatically been eliminated from contention, unless they can improve on their performance at the NACAC Championships next month in Costa Rica from August 7-9.

Team Bahamas got two medals in swimming from Arianna Vanderpool-Wallace with a gold, Pan Am and Bahamas national record in the women's 50m freestyle and a bronze in the 100m free. Jeffery Gibson struck gold in the men's 400m hurdles with a national record breaking performance, while national record holders Leevan 'Superman' Sands and Bianca 'BB' Stuart secured the silver medals in their specialties in the men's triple jump and the women's long jump respectively.

A full report on the team's performance will be published in Monday's edition of The Tribune.