The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

AFTER dropping all the way to seventh on the medal table at last year’s CARIFTA Games in Fort-de-France, Martinique, the Bahamas Association of Athletic Associations made a drastic change to its selection process for the 2015 version of the top junior regional track and field meet.

When the games are held in Sugar City, St Kitts and Nevis, over the Easter holiday weekend, BAAA president Mike Sands said the Bahamas will be represented by a “lean, but very competitive” national team. The BAAA will focus on its team selection this weekend at the Thomas A Robinson Track and Field Stadium. The trials are slated to begin 5pm Friday and wrap up on Saturday, starting at 1pm.

“It’s always my expectation and our hope that we will be able to get as many qualifiers as possible so that we can have a very competitive team for Carifta,” Sands said. “I’m looking forward to seeing some more athletes attaining the qualifying standards. We have more than 20 who have made the standards so far.

“I am in Grand Bahama right now and after witnessing their high schools championships, they had a few more qualifiers, so I’m looking forward to seeing the head-to-head confrontations this weekend, which should enable us to get in some more qualifiers. I understand that Grand Bahama is coming with a big contingent, North Andros, who performed exceptionally well at the Nationals, is bringing in a small contingent and the coaches and athletes are all aware of the qualifying standards, so everybody is striving towards that and we are just hoping for the best.”

Earlier this year, Sands said the BAAA will only be selecting athletes for the inidividual events who would have made the qualifying standards that have been set by the BAAA. When asked if that will still stand, Sands said there will be no exception to the rules that have been set.

“The athletes will have to qualify in the individual events and if they don’t meet the qualifying standards, they won’t go,” Sands said. “The coaches have been made aware of the qualifying standards, the athletes have been aware of the standards and the parents are aware of the standards, so we are expecting that they will all be striving towards attaining the standards.”

The trials are expected to be a mandatory one for all athletes, but as usual, Sands said there are some athletes who won’t be able to participate because of their school commitments in the United States. In those cases, once athletes would have written in, they will be exempted from competing this weekend.

“We have received some communications from some athletes and where an athlete is not able to attend the trials because of school obligations, their times and distances, obviously, have to be better than the local athletes if they met the qualifying standards,” Sands stated.

“If results are submitted from those athletes from a reputable meet with the official results and they are better than the performances of the local athletes who would have also made the qualifying standards, then consideration will be given to them when we select the team on Sunday.”

Last year, the Bahamas got just one gold medal, which came from the under-18 4 x 100 metre relay team of Kinard Rolle, Tyler Bowe, Keanu Pennerman and Javan Martin to go along with the eight silver and 10 bronze for a total of 19 medals. That placed the Bahamas seventh on the medal chart that was topped once again by Jamaica with 89, inclusive of 42 gold, 34 silver and 13 bronze.

Trinidad & Tobago finished second with six gold, seven silver and 12 bronze for a total of 25 and Barbados rounded out the top three with 16 medals after they collected five gold, five silver and six bronze out of the field of 25 countries that participated in the three-day meet.

“Last year’s performance at CARIFTA obviously was not satisfactory to any of us who were there,” Sands said. “I think that caused us to take another look at our standards because we can no longer settle for what we were doing. The coaches are aware and everyone is in agreement with the standards being set and for the athletes to achieve those standards as we expect them to.

“While we expect to have a leaner team, we expect that we will have a much more competitive team in the process. So we have taken a review of the performances and no excuses to be made, but the conditions were probably one of the worst that I’ve ever experienced at CARIFTA in terms of everything else. So we hope to take that as an experience to improve on our standards and everything else.”

Following the trials, the BAAA is expected to officially name the team on Sunday.