By Matt Westcott

BERMUDA'S gymnasts may have come last in the women's all-round team event at the G-Mex Centre in Manchester, but one of their team got almost as much attention as those that scooped the gold, silver and bronze.

Kaleena Astwood, at just 13 years-old, is the youngest competitor at the Commonwealth Games and found herself the subject of the photographers' lens on Saturday.

Astwood though is not the only baby of the squad as team member Casey Lopes is herself 13 and the elder stateswoman of the Island trio Maria Darby is just 15.

Astwood, from Warwick, has been competing for five years and claimed the balance beam National Champion title at Level Seven during the 2001 United States Association of Independent Gymnastics Clubs championships.

At the weekend, however, the team found itself in some illustrious company and though they all performed well, the trio could not threaten the likes of Australia, England and Canada, who took gold, silver and bronze respectively.

Bermuda scored 82.875 points after the vault, uneven bars, balance beam and floor exercises, the champions notching 111.325.

As a result none of the girls made it through to the individual round of the competition on Sunday.

Meanwhile, on the shooting range Bermuda's men were in action over the weekend.

At Bisley National Shooting Centre, in Surrey near London, Sinclair Rayner and Nelson Simons came 14th out of 21 in the Open Full Bore Rifle Pairs competition. They scored 560.43 points compared to the 590.86 scored by Northern Ireland in first.

In the men's 50m Rifle Prone Pairs, Ross Roberts and Carl Reid repeated their compatriots' feat finishing 14th with a total of 1145. England were first with 1189.

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WHAT'S IN A NAME: Bermuda's athletes have the unwanted distinction of not being very well known outside of the Caribbean or Americas. This point was proven when the third heat for the men's 200 metres was being announced.

"In lane six we have James Xavier," declared the commentator. Xavier James, meanwhile, just smiled as if this wasn't the first time he had been the subject of mistaken identity.

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GOLDEN GIRL: Sat at the final of the three metre springboard event, I was involved in pleasant conversation with a middle-aged English woman next to me.

"Are you here watching one of your relatives?" I asked.

"No, she said. I used to dive," before going on to expand on her CV.

"I won the gold medal in 1966 competing for England in Jamaica," said the woman, revealing she was in fact Joy Newman, now Blanchard. "It's so great to see them here in my home town."

Asked if the dives the girls were executing were more difficult than ones she used to do she said: "Oh yes, they are doing dives that even the men did not do in 1966."

Blanchard said she was still in touch with at least one of the athletes she competed against in `66. "I still have a friend who I met in Jamaica who still comes to England to see me. It certainly is the Friendly Games," she said.

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WRITERS' CRAMP: With the likes of lawn bowls and netball being introduced into the Commonwealth Games I am going to suggest that journalists should get a piece of the action.

I feel like I've been competing in the reporter's version of the decathlon, dashing this way and that trying to cover 25 athletes in sports ranging from cycling to squash, to shooting and gymnastics.

At 8 a.m. on Saturday it was off on an hour long journey to Rivington near Bolton for the cycling time trial, then with an hour before the start of the 800 metres it was back to Manchester in a bid to catch Tamika Williams compete. Half an hour later I was sat alongside the squash court, then it was back to the Press Centre to find out how the gymnasts and shooters had performed. After a small break it was off to the diving at the Manchester Aquatics Centre before the final event of a long day, the 100 metre dash to the pub.

If I'd known I had to be this fit I'd have got in some training beforehand.

QUOTEWORTHY: "Definitely, it will come." - Bermudian diver Katura Horton-Perinchief revealing she planned to put some pressure on her Sports Minister Uncle Randy Horton to have some diving facilities constructed in her homeland.