their public with some excellent performances in the team and individual competitions here at the CAC Games. Their floor routines in particular brought the crowd to their feet.

So good were they that Bermuda coach Walid Mustafa was moved to predict: "You're looking at the next Russian team here. Four years ago they weren't far ahead of us. But they invested in their programme.

"Russia used to be the powerhouse but now the Pan American union is coming on strong because they mostly have Russian coaches. The Venezuelan team you saw should earn one of the top 12 spots in the world in the Olympics.'' But was their a more worrying aspect to all this? After Tuesday night's competition, Mustafa relayed that one of the Venezuelan girls who had just completed a superb floor routine -- "you heard the crowd roaring'' he said -- was absolutely devastated and in tears because she scored a tenth less than she expected to.

"That's not our philosophy,'' added Mustafa. "In four to six years I hope to be competitive with teams like them, but not if it's at that kind of expense.

"In the end it comes back down to what you want for your athletes and I guarantee that my athletes have a lot more fun than they do.'' *** THE most oft-heard national anthem of these Games has been that of Cuba. No great surprise there, since they have topped the medals table at the last six CAC competitions and prompted one Trinidadian journalist to say: "Not for nothing is this known as the Cuban Games.'' In all, with a day to go, they had captured 269 medals -- that's about one for every two athletes. More than half -- 149 to be exact -- were of gold hue.

Mexico, perhaps the next most powerful sporting nation in these parts, are second with 186 medals, 53 of them gold, while hosts Venezuela have indicated their growing prowess with a complement of 148 (45 gold).

A total of 21 of the 32 nations present have won one form of precious metal or another, with minnows Aruba and the Dutch Antilles among them.

For Bermuda, however, it is the first time since the Island first competed in these Games in 1974 that its athletes have failed to win at least one medal.

*** ONE reason for the above statistic may be the absence of Brian Wellman.

Although the triple jumper has not been performing well of late, he might have been expected to have taken at least bronze from the competition had injury not intervened. The results of that competition, held on Sunday, would seem to bear that out.

Although Cuba'ss Yoelbis Quesada set a new Games record with his best jump of 17.18 metres, the silver could well have been in Wellman's grasp as Quesada's compatriot Aliecer Urrutia managed just 16.53. The bronze was taken by Mexico's Ivan Salcedo Barrer with a leap of only 16.10.