Sports – Fencing
Athlete – Sanojah Gilkes
Date: December 4, 2021
Name of Event: Junior Pan American Games 2021
Location of event: Yumbo, Colombia
After a good preliminary, Barbados Sanojah Gilkes finished a creditable 9th overall in the Women’s Epee Fencing competition of the Inaugural Junior Pan American Games in Cali Colombia on Saturday, December 4, 2021.
During the preliminaries Gilkes was impressive with her poise as she defeated Chile’s Rosarario Diaz Del Rio. Gilkes, who is not a ranked player overcame Diaz Del Rio who is a 65th ranked junior and 351st in the seniors. Diaz Del Rio went on to be one of the eventual bronze medalists in the current event.
Her Round of 16 was a tough battle as she faced off with Karina Dyer from Costa Rica who was ranked 53rd as a junior and has moved up the rankings to 15th. Gilkes went down in this bout 15-4 to end her campaign. The Bajan Epee fencer’s passage to the Round of 16 saw her winning three of her five matches in the preliminaries.
Her opening bout against Carolina Carillo from Puerto Rico was a winning start to her campaign 5-3. Gilkes then went down in the second bout 2-5 to Dayanna Guevara from Argentina who eventually went on to top he pool undefeated. Gilkes journey to the Round of 16 continued as she was defeated by the gold medal winner Victoria Mayor from Brazil, while her final bout of the pool saw her defeat Charlotte Boyer from Haiti 5-3 which earned her a Top 3 placing in the Pool.
The Gold medal was won by who has been in the Top 10 rankings for the last two years in the juniors
