XX Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland – July 23 to August 3, 2014 |26 July 2014

 Mixed results for Seychellois on first two days

Team Seychelles registered mixed results on the first two days of competition at the XX Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland.

All three swimmers were in action on the first day, with Adam Viktora being the first off the blocks for Seychelles as he finished in fifth place in heat number four of the men’s 50m butterfly with a time of 26.86 seconds. Northern Ireland’s Conor Munn claimed first position in 25.57 seconds. Adam’s time earned him 30th place overall out of 50 swimmers, with Englishman Benjamin proudly leading the way with a time of 23.17 seconds.

The other male swimmer, Dean Hoffman managed a third place finish in the three-man heat one line-up with a time of 1 minute 09.60 seconds (1:09.60) in the men’s 100 backstroke. His time was the slowest amongst 33 competitors. Timothy Wynter of Jamaica was the winner of heat number one in 58.97 seconds, while England’s Chris Walker-Hebborn was first overall in 53.30 seconds.

The only Seychellois female swimmer at the games Felicity Passon was also in action in the women’s 100m butterfly heat number four. She finished last out of eight swimmers in a time of 1:04.81 to get an overall rank of 22nd out of 31. The winner of the heats in which Felicity competed in was Alisia Coutts from Australia and she had the overall best time of 57.93 seconds.

Yesterday, Viktora clocked 2:04:65 and Hoffman stopped the clock at 2:14.60 to be ranked 31st and 37th in the 200m freestyle preliminaries. Passon clocked 27.52 seconds in the 50m freestyle.

In badminton, the Seychelles team who have done so well in continental competitions were dominated by hosts Scotland in the team event. Seychelles have been drawn in group C along with Guernsey, Scotland and New Zealand. Scotland, who were playing in front of the home supporters won the contest 5-0, winning all their matches without losing a set.

The duo of Juliette Ah-Wan and Georgie Cupidon lost 0-2 (11-21, 5-21) to Martin Campbell and Jillie Cooper in the mixed doubles, before Kervin Ghislain lost 0-2 (2-21, 8-21) to Kieran Merrilees and Alisen Camille then lost to Rebekka Findley on a 0-2 (21-7, 21-11) score in the women’s singles. In the men’s doubles match, it was Georgie Cupidon and Steve Malcouzane who lost to Patrick MacHugh and Martin Campbell 0-2 (10-21, 4-21), while in the women’s doubles, Juliette Ah-Wan and Alisen lost 0-2 (14-21, 9-21) to Imogen Bankier and Caitlin Pringle.

“It’s not easy to play against Scotland, especially in Glasgow,” is how Kervin Ghislain described the experience of playing against the hosts. “It was my first time playing against a European player and I am very happy with the opportunity,” he added after facing world number 8 Kieran Merrilees.

In table tennis, the Seychelles men’s team have been drawn against Ghana, Sri Lanka and Singapore in the team event. The team lost all the contests on 3-0 scores as their opponents proved too strong.

Against Sri Lanka, Nicholas Esther lost 0-3 (5-11, 4-11, 7-11) against Rohan Sirisena, Godfrey Sultan lost to Dinesh Deshappriya 0-3 (7-11, 7-11, 6-11), and the duo of Nicholas Esther and Dario Laurence lost 0-3 (4-11, 1-11, 7-11) to a Sri Lankan duo.

Seychelles’ second match was against Ghana, and here Godfrey Sultan lost 0-3 (3-11, 8-11, 9-11) against Felix Lartey, before Nicholas Esther went down 0-3 (7-11, 11-13, 8-11) against Emanuel Commey. Sultan then teamed up with Laurence for the doubles, where they lost 1-3 (7-11, 11-7, 4-11, 5-11) against the Ghanaians.

Their final match was against Singapore on Friday morning and they again lost all three matches. Sultan went down against Ning Gao 0-3 (6-11, 2-11, 4-11) and was followed in defeat by Laurence who lost 0-3 (3-11, 6-11, 6-11) against Zi Yang. In the doubles, the players from Singapore won the match against Esther and Sultan 3-0 (11-3, 11-3, 11-8).

Meanwhile, Seychelles was making its debut in squash at the Commonwealth Games and it was Ridvan Prosper and Eva Alphonse who are representing the country.

In the women’s round of 64, Alphonse lost 0-3 (1-11, 1-11, 3-11) to Nadindhi Udangawa of Sri Lanka after spending just 11 minutes on the courts.

As for Prosper, he suffered defeat after 13 minutes, losing 0-3 (0-11, 3-11, 1-11) to Malaysian Ivan Yuen in the men’s round of 64.

After the match Prosper said: “In Seychelles we don’t play that much, but hopefully we can improve and compete at the same level as my Malaysian opponent today. It is the first time Seychelles is taking part in the games as far as squash is concerned and I hope this in an incentive for young Seychellois to take up the sport.”

Prosper and Alphonse will now hope to get further in the plate competition, which they will now compete in.

In judo yesterday, Naddy Jeanne won his first fight by ippon against Gervas Leonard Chilipweli from Tanzania in the -73kg category before losing by waza-ari against Eoin Fleming from Northern Ireland in the round of 16.

As for Leslie Philoe he lost his first fight by ippon against Mark Brewer from New Zealand in the round of 16 of the -81kg class.

In weightlifting, Rick Confiance finished seventh out of eight lifters with an Olympic total weight of 231kg. He lifted 106kg in the snatch and 125kg in clean & jerk.

Text and photos Sedrick Nicette in Glasgow