The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

SINCE the introduction of their ‘Day in the Life of an Athlete’ programme in 2003, Anna Legniani said they’ve been able to showcase some of the best talent around the world.

Prior to the staging of the inaugural World Relays at the Thomas A Robinson National Stadium May 24-25 and the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, the IAAF decided to focus on the Caribbean and South and Central American region and some of the athletes who will be on display.

A week ago, the first leg got started in Jamaica where the IAAF took a small group of journalists to meet up close and personal athletes like Yohan Blake, Warren Weir and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce.

At the same time while they were in Jamaica, Legniani said they got a chance to view the popular Boys Championships that took place at the National Stadium in Kingston.

This week, the second leg of the Caribbean tour before the World Relays will be in the Bahamas.

The trips to the various countries will also allow the journalists to not only interview the athletes on and off the track, but also former Olympic champions and medallists and officials as they focus on highlighting the sport and its future in each country.

Starting today, the journalists will be arriving in town and will spend the next two days interviewing Chris ‘Fireman’ Brown, Tonique Williams, IAAF councilwoman Pauline Davis-Thompson, the Bahamas Association of Athletic Association, the Bahamas Olympic Committee and the Local Organizing Committee for the World Relays.

While the journalists missed the opportunity to view the BAAAs final Carifta trials over the weekend, Legniani said they will get an opportunity to view some of the top stars that will be named to the team headed to Martinique over the Easter holiday weekend during their training sessions.

“We will be working with an amazing young man, who seems to be getting faster and faster at an old age,” said Legniani, of Brown, who ran a personal best time in the men’s 400 metres for the silver medal at the IAAF World Indoor Champions in Sopot, Poland.

“We will also be profiling Tonique as an organiser and as she interacts with her athletes whom she is now training.”

During their visit to Jamaica, the group got to visit Fraser-Pryce at her beauty salon and the boys’ home supported by Blake’s Foundation.

On Wednesday, the group will be heading to Eleuthera where they will spend the next two days with Brown in his hometown of Wemyss Bight before they leave for Puerto Rico on Friday.

During the trip to Puerto Rico, the group will be entertained by 2012 Olympic silver and 2013 World Championship 400m bronze medallist Luguelin Santos of the Dominican Republic before wrapping up the fourth leg in Trinidad & Tobago with Hasely Crawford, the 1996 Olympic 100m champion and Jehue Gordon, the 2013 World 400m hurdles champion, before they both go to the Carifta Games.

“This is really exciting for me because I really wanted to do this last year because it is a fact that the best quarter-milers in the planet come from the region,” Legniani said.

The tour was also expected to include 2011 world 400m champion Kirani James from Grenada, but Legniani said because of his commitments to school in the United States, it was impossible to get all of the logistics worked out in his hometown.

James, the 2012 Olympic champion and 2010 World junior champion who is attending the University of Alabama, is preparing for a clash with reigning American world champion LaShawn Merritt at the Drake Relays April 23-27 in Des Moines, Iowa.

“Some of the best quarter-milers on the planet are from this region, the medallists from the World Championships and the Olympic Games,” she said. “Of course we added the sprinters from Jamaica because we want the people in the region to learn more bout their athletes and to be really proud of them.”

As a former sports writer from Germany, Stefan Phies, who is working along with Legniani in the media services for the World Relays, said it’s an unique programme and that is why they consider her as the “mother” of sports journalism around the world.

“My collegiate in the whole world are thankful to Anna for running a programme like this,” he said. “You won’t find anything like this in any other sport.”