The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

IT was a tremendous turnaround for Team Bahamas at the Silver Jubilee CARIFTA Games in St Kitts and Nevis over the weekend.

With a much smaller team, the Bahamas regained its second place finish behind powerhouse Jamaica by collecting 31 medals, inclusive of eight gold, 13 silver and 10 bronze, a vast improvement over last year’s seventh place in Martinique with just 19 medals, only one of which was a gold.

On the team’s return home, Bahamas Association of Athletic Associations president Mike Sands said they made a bold decision to only select athletes who made the qualifying standards and it turned out to be the right decision as the 53-member team performed exceptionally well.

“We felt that we could have done better,” said Sands about last year’s dismal finish. “We always had the qualifying standards, but we decided only to take those athletes who attained the standards that we set, because we wanted to take a quality team.

“So when we reviewed our performances, we realised that we were not doing ourselves or the athletes any kind of service that we thought they should be getting simply because it did not really force them to improve to the extent where we settled for mediocrity. So this time, I think the athletes, the parents and the coaches thought this was the right thing to do.”

During the team ratification meeting, Sands said there were some coaches who wanted the BAAA to deviate from its stance, but they decided to stick with it and only added a few athletes for the relay pools and it worked out in Team Bahamas’ favour as they had a quality team that went to St Kitts and Nevis.

“I’m very pleased that we have done that and I think going forward, it’s the thing to do because from the results, we accomplished our goal,” said Sands about the BAAA selection process. “We got back into the second spot, but it’s obviously very difficult to close the gap between us and Jamaica.

“Jamaica won a total of 41 medals, but if you check the results between ourselves, Trinidad & Tobago and Barbados, we only got 21 gold. So Jamaica had another outstanding meet, but we will continue to work towards closing the gap. And how do we do that, we have to look at events that we are not competitive in at all like the pole vault, which is the easiest medal to go and we have to look more seriously at our distance-running programme.”

Sands, however, commended the athletes and the coaches for getting Team Bahamas back on track this year. He said the Bahamian fans, including the parents, who travelled with the team helped to make the trip a success and now they have to focus on next year’s games in Grenada.

Charisma Taylor and Shanquania Dorsett led Team Bahamas by winning two gold medals each, while Keianna Albury, Brianna Bethel and Dannielle Gibson also picked up a pair of medals. Out of the 14 records set, Tavonte Mott got the only one for the Bahamas in the under-17 boys 110 metre hurdles.

As for Jamaica’s dominance, Sands said the BAAA has to look at their programme holistically and improve in the areas that they have not had any representation and, if it is necessary, they will have to look at bringing in some coaches to help the local coaches in getting the national programme to the next level.

“Swimming did it. They went ahead and brought in a coach from Cuba, so we’re not adversed to doing it if we have to,” Sands said. “We will review our programme and in consultant with the coaches, make a decision on the way forward especially in our distance programme and a few more events on the field.

“We just have to look at the results from this year’s CARIFTA Games and work towards improving on the areas that we didn’t have any success in and hopefully we can continue to turn things around. We moved from seventh place, which was embarrassing last year and we got up to second place, so we’re getting there.”