The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

LONDON, England —With the Olympic Games not scheduled to start until Friday, Team Bahamas took care of their obligations to their major sponsor by attending a reception Wednesday night at Claridge’s Hotel.

It was attended by executives of BTC and their parent company, Cable and Wireless, in addition to the Ministry of Youth, Sports and Culture, team executives from some of the other Caribbean countries participating, as well as some of the Bahamians residing in London, who got a chance to mix and mingle with the 26-member team that will compete in the games from Friday to Sunday, August 12.

All members of the team, including Aymara Jones and Avard Moncur, who have been added to the women’s 4 x 100 and the men’s 4 x 400 metre relay pools, were in attendance, along with the management team, headed by chef de mission Roy Colebrooke and the Bahamas Olympic Committee’s delegation that include president Wellington Miller and secretary general Romel Knowles.

In thanking BTC for their sponsorship, Colebrooke said the BOC had selected a team that he was confident would perform exceptionally well.

“My job is to make sure that these athletes are concerned about one thing and that is to compete at the best of their ability and to ensure that the Bahamian people are 100 per cent proud of them,” Colebrooke said. “They all know that the entire Bahamas is backing them and we are sure that are friends that are here in London and in Crawley (where they attended a training camp) are backing them.”

Miller said when they received the huge contribution of $100,000 from BTC, it put the team in a much better position to come to the games and not have to worry about anything, but to train and compete. But he noted that they have developed such a relationship that for the next four years, BOC will be collecting a cheque for $20,000 each year for the development of the team going into the 2016 Olympic Games.

Tellis Symonette, the Senior Vice President of Commercial and Family Islands at BTC, was introduced by Master of Ceremony Jerome Sawyer as the man who worked tirelessly with the BOC to make the historic sponsorship possible. Symonette said it was a 

“Four G Network in the Bahamas have a slogan Blazing Speed and looking at our athletes here today, you guys are really changing that concept,” Symonette stressed. “We now have to call it Amazing Speed because of what you guys are capable of doing. When you go out there and compete, we know that you will show the world just how amazing you are as you go out there and try to bring home the gold.”

Symonette said BTC was delighted to be present to share in the prelude to what is being anticipated as a tremendous games for the Bahamas and they wanted to shoe the athletes that they are behind them 100 per cent.

Cable and Wireless Communications’ Chief Executive Officer Tony Rice took the opportunity to welcome Team Bahamas to London and he acknowledged the tremendous success of the Bahamas, particularly with such distinguished members of the team present in World and Olympic 400 metre champion Tonique Williams-Darling, who is working with the team; sprinter Debbie Ferguson-McKenzie and national champion Chandra Sturrup, the latter two who competed on the women’s Golden Girls 4 x 100m relay teams at the World Championships and the Olympics.

But he jokingly noted that there’s no need for the Bahamas to worry about any of Britain’s athletes competing at the level that the Bahamas has done in the past games - because their strength was more in events that required the competitors to be sitting down more than running!

Mr Rice encouraged the athletes to enjoy themselves in London, but at the same time, continue to make the Bahamas proud of their accomplishments.

Minister of Sports, Dr Daniel Johnson, who was accompanied by the Director of Sports, said his only problem was one that he experienced when he attended school in England - that when residents say they are inviting you for dinner, they feed you everything but dinner. So he was more sympathetic to the athletes who complained that they came hoping to get a big meal, but instead were treated to finger food.

On a more serious note, Johnson said he too was confident that the athletes were not going to let that deter them because they are focused on the goal ahead of them, which is performing at their best and that could be equated to them reaching the finals and appearing on the medal dais in their respective events.

For a number of persons in attendance, the reception gave them an opportunity to meet the athletes up close and personal.

Captain Dwain Hutchinson, the Master Mariner at the Bahamas Maritime Authority, said with the games being based in London, it gave the England based Bahamians an opportunity to see and talk to the athletes whom they only get to see on television.

“We expect nothing but the best from them,” he said. “We know that a lot of countries have some strong teams, but we have some excellent athletes and so we are looking forward to seeing how well they perform here.”

YOU can follow the team’s progress by reading Brent’s reports every day during the Olympics, including in The Big T on Saturday.