Elton Tucker, Assistant Sport Editor
ALIA ATKINSON ... Just missed place in final.
MELBOURNE, Australia:
TEENAGE SWIMMER Alia Atkinson broke the national women's 50-metre breaststroke record twice in less than 12 hours as she highlighted Jamaica's performance on the first day of competition at the XVIII Commonwealth Games here yesterday.
Atkinson first clocked 33.09 seconds in the morning's heats to reach the semi-finals with the 11th best time. Her time was well under the previous national record of 33.40 seconds. The new mark placed her fifth in heat four won in a Games record 30.51 by Australia's Jade Edmistone.
Eight hours later, Atkinson missed the final by seven-hundredths of a second but had the satisfaction of beating her own record with a 32.52 clocking. Atkinson had the ninth fastest time after the semi-finals and will be the first alternate for today's final.
Swimming manager, John Eyre, was elated at Atkinson's record-breaking show.
GOOD PERFORMANCE
"It was an extremely good performance," Eyre said. "She is the first alternate for the final; should any of the top eight drop out she will be in," he added. Eyre said he was hoping that Atkinson would maintain her form to win gold at the regional Central American and Caribbean Games in mid-year.
In her opening event yesterday, Atkinson was third in her heat of the women's 200m individual medley and 12th overall in an event where the top eight made today's final. She clocked 2:26.34 behind Australia's highly rated Brook Hanson, who won in 2:15.26.
Tamara Swaby was 27th overall of 35 swimmers in the women's 50m butterfly. She placed seventh in her heat in 30.93, with the winner, Jessicah Schipper of Australia, clocking 26.77.
The national badminton quartet got off to a bad start in Pool B of the mixed team event. They were whipped 5-0 by hosts Australia. Travis Denney and Kate Smith
Wilson beat Garron Palmer and Alya Lewis 21-8, 21-10 in the first mixed doubles.
Stuart Brehaut eased past Jamaica's Charles Pyne 21-16, 21-16 and Kellie Lucas defeated Jamaica's top woman, Nigella Saunders, 21-16, 21-18. Pine and Palmer lost 21-9, 21-7 in the men's doubles while Saunders and Lewis were beaten 21-17, 21-14 in the women's doubles. Jamaica's Chris Binnie, Marlene West and Karen Anderson are all out of the main draw in the squash singles. Binnie, who turned 17, in January won his opening match beating Dominica's Leonard 9-0, 9-2, 9-3 in the round of 64 but then faced the experienced Azlan Iskander of Malaysia and was eliminated 9-0, 9-1, 9-1. Both women fell at the first hurdle. West was beaten 9-1, 9-0, 9-1 by Australia's Amelie Pittock while Anderson proved no match for Lindo Elriani of England and went down 9-4, 9-1, 9-2.
GOOD VICTORIES
The men's table tennis team has so far tallied two good victories in Pool One of the team competition.
Gavin Hylton, Darryl Strachan and Nigel Webb all won easily as they swept past Malawi 3-0.
They were made to fight by Fiji before emerging 3-1 victors. In a thrilling decider, Webb, who had lost his opening match, overcame Fiji's Wang Qi 3-2 (6-11, 11-7, 11-6, 7-11, 11-7). Strachan and Hylton had earlier scored 3-1 wins in their matches.
Today's events, from a Jamaican standpoint, will be highlighted by the 2002 bronze medal-winning netball team which bows into action against Singapore and the cyclists Iona Wynter and Ricardo Lynch.
Wynter, 37, is in her first Commonwealth Games as a cyclist after competing for Jamaica at the 2000 Olympics in the triathlon. Lynch, 21, is the first Jamaican cyclist to qualify for the World Championships and a lot is expected from him here.
