The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

THE Bahamas will be heading to their 17th appearance at the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in August.

Since 1952, the Bahamas has participated in every one of the four-yearly global games, except in 1980 in Moscow, Russia when the country joined 64 others in an American-led boycott because of the Soviet war in Afghanistan.

When the games are scheduled to be staged August 5-21 in Rio, there is expected to be an absence of Russia, at least from the athletic competition, after the IAAF banned their athletes from competing because of a systematic doping system that operated “from the top down” and tainted the entire team.

The Bahamas has never been punished for any infraction at the games, but has benefited from the actions of few athletes and relay teams.

Over the years, the Bahamas has accumulated a total of 11 medals in athletics and sailing. The first two medals came at the hands of sailors Sir Durward ‘Sea Wolf’ Knowles and Sloan Farrington with the bronze in the Star Class in 1956 in Melbourne before Knowles came back in Tokyo, Japan in 1964 with Cecil Cooke to claim the gold.

Ever since Frank Rutherford broke the barrier in winning the Bahamas’ first medal in athletics with his bronze in the men’s triple jump in Barcelona, Spain in 1992, the Bahamas has been successful in securing at least one medal in every successive games.

The first track medal came from the Golden Girls 4x100 metre relay team of Eldece Clarke, Sevatheda Fynes, Chandra Sturrup, Pauline Davis-Thompson and Debbie Ferguson-McKenzie.

In 2000 in Sydney, Australia, the first of three double medal feats as the Golden Girls returned to pick up the gold in the relay and Davis-Thompson was eventually elevated to the gold from her silver after American Marion Jones was disqualified for a banned substance.

The Golden Girls era came to an end, but the individual success continued for the Bahamas with Tonique Williams racing to the gold in the women’s 400m and Ferguson-McKenzie snatched a bronze in the women’s 200m.

Beijing, China in 2008 ushered in the men’s 4x400m relay team as Andretti Bain, Michael Mathieu, Andrae Williams and Chris ‘Fireman’ Brown combined for the silver. Leevan ‘Superman’ Sands joined Rutherford in becoming the second Bahamian to win a bronze in the men’s triple jump.

It was also a repeat in London, England in 2012 when the men’s 4x4 team of Mathieu, Ramon Miller, Brown and Demetrius Pinder emerged as the gold medallists. But in the final of the men’s triple jump, Sands went down with a knee injury and had to have surgery.

Who will step it up and continue the legacy for the Bahamas in Rio in August?

There are a number of qualifiers so far, including Brown and Sands, two of the veterans on the men’s side. As for the ladies, if Ferguson-McKenzie doesn’t qualify in what is considered to be her “swan song,” there will be a new crop of competitors taking centre stage.

Both the Bahamas Association of Athletic Associations and the Bahamas Swimming Federation are holding their National Championships this weekend at the Queen Elizabeth Sports Centre.

But it won’t be until mid-July when the final team is named by the Bahamas Olympic Committee as the governing bodies for both sports have a small window left for competitors to qualify.

The Amateur Boxing Association of the Bahamas is keeping its fingers crossed that Rashield Williams will be successful in winning his next two bouts at the 2016 World Qualifying Event for boxers in Baku, Azerbaijan.

Williams, competing in the men’s light welterweight division or 64 kilogram class, was the only one of the six boxers to survive the first round of competition over the weekend. He won 3-0 over Miguel Ferrin from Ecuador.

So there’s still some light at the end of the tunnel.