Bermuda's triathletes vowed to "drop the hammer'' at the CAC Games -- and they were as good as their word.

Kevin Tucker finished at the head of the trio, but Kent Richardson recorded a personal best time over the Olympic distance.

Tab Froud was a bit further back but still completed in a creditable time of two hours, 23 minutes, and 56 seconds in the searing heat of Ola Beach, across the lake from city of Maracaibo.

Tucker's time of 2:04.05 was enough to propel him to 21st position in a field of 32; Richardson, meanwhile, who broke through the 2:10 barrier to make 2:08.51, was three spots behind him.

But the pair, who had regularly trained together in preparation for the event, were almost neck and neck until the running discipline. Richardson came out of the water in 21:09 -- just a second ahead of his friend and rival -- and after the 40K bike ride he had opened that gap to a mere three seconds. But Tucker had the edge in the run, completing that in 37:43 compared with Richardson's 42:24.

Froud, the fastest of the three in the water -- he was over a minute ahead of his team-mates with a time of 20:02 -- found the cycling and the run harder going, completing them in 1:14.04 and 48:17 respectively as the thermometer shifted up into the high nineties.

The event was won by Venezuela's Gilberto Gonzales in a time of 1:51.11.

Mexico's Javier Rosas and Jose Uzizal Valen took silver and bronze respectively.

HOCKEY Bermuda's ladies hockey team suffered two 3-0 defeats at the weekend but were again left cursing their luck.

The losses, to Jamaica on Saturday and Barbados yesterday, left the side bottom of the six-strong group with just a merciless Cuba to play.

But coach Dai Hermann-Smith said last night: "We just need to get some luck.

I'm not making that as an excuse but we've had plenty of shots on goal and the ball just won't go in for us.'' Indeed, it might have been a different story had two early chances for Helen Farrington and Samantha Adams gone in against Jamaica, but with the heat soaring Hermann-Smith made the most of the rolling substitution rule to make three changes in the first 25 minutes.

Unfortunately, that seemed to have a destabilising affect on the Bermuda team and Jamaica assumed complete control for a brief period, grabbing all three of their goals in a purple patch shortly before half-time.

It was a similar story against Barbados, with the Caribbean side scrambling in two goals from penalty corners in the fifth and 17th minutes through Angela Thompson.

However, Bermuda missed a great chance to get back into the game with 11 minutes to go when Bartley won a penalty flick after being upended by Barbados goalkeeper Lana Als.

But Als made amends for her mistake, making a brilliant save to deny Bermuda captain Danielle Skinner from the resulting award.

As it was, Barbados took advantage of a momentary lapse in concentration to romp up the other end to score their third through Nicola Braithwaite.

TRIATHLON TRI HOCKEY HOC