The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

THE Bahamas Olympic Committee had a keen eye on the Bahamas Association of Athletic Associations and the Bahamas Swimming Federation’s National Championships at the Queen Elizabeth Sports Centre over the weekend.

BOC vice president Roy Colebrooke, who will serve as the chef de mission of Team Bahamas, said he wanted to make sure that everything was in order.

“We had a number of persons who I think did very well,” said Colebrooke as he took in the track and field action at the new Thomas A Robinson National Stadium on Friday and Saturday.

“I believe with confidence in what I’ve seen and so I feel that the team should be a very good one when the final selection is made. We hope to have a bigger team than the last games in 2012, so it’s just an indication of what is happening in our sporting bodies.”

While the BOC is getting set to complete its team for the trip to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in August, the organising committee in Rio indicated that they are waiting to welcome the world, especially the athletes, to the games.

RIO 2016 has officially unveiled the Athletes’ Village for this year’s Olympic and Paralympic Games ahead of the first athlete arrivals next month in Rio de Janeiro.

The Village, located next to the Barra da Tijuca Olympic Park, will house around 11,000 competitors and 6,000 coaches for the Olympics before 4,350 Paralympians and 2,000 officials move in ahead of the Paralympics in September.

The exact cost of the facility has not been revealed.

Rio 2016 claim it is the biggest-ever Village to be used at an Olympic Games as it consists of 31 apartment buildings, some of which are as high as 17 storeys.

A total of 3,604 apartments are available at the Village.

It was revealed by organisers to coincide with Olympic Day, the annual celebration of the Olympic Movement.

Colebrooke said he’s not surprised because when he travelled to Rio with the other chef de missions to inspect the facilities in November, he discovered that the Games Village was about 90 per cent complete. As a result of that, Colebrooke said the regional director for the games had informed him that everything is in order.

“Rest assured, I will be down there well ahead of the athletes to ensure that everything is satisfactory for Team Bahamas,” he said. “Wherever there is a concern, I will try to address it so that the athletes won’t have any concerns to worry about once they get there.”

Security, which has been raised as one of the key concerns in the lead-up to Rio 2016, and every athlete’s bag will be checked and everyone who enters the village will need to go through an X-ray scanner.

As for Zika, the mosquito virus that has affected Brazil and has forced some of the athletes from some of the countries to pull out, Colebrooke once again assured the Bahamian public and the athletes in general, just as he has done before, that they are monitoring the situation.

Colebrooke, however, said if it’s deemed necessary by their health experts that they should not attend, then they will continue with the process of getting Team Bahamas ready to travel in July before the start of the games on August 4.

The BSF has two swimmers who have automatically qualified in Arianna Vanderpool-Wallace and Joanna Evans. Vereance “Elvis’ Burrows and Dustin Tynes have done the B standard and if they fail to make the A cuts in their respective events, they will have to wait to see if FINA would include their names when they complete the final listing of the swimmers going to Rio.

During the BSF’s FINCO Nationals at the Betty Kelly Kenning Swim Complex, Evans moved up from the B to the A standard in the women’s 800m freestyle to join Vanderpool-Wallace, who did it in two events prior to coming to the Nationals.

If they don’t make the cut this weekend, both Burrows and Tynes, as well as any other Bahamian, will have another chance at the Caribbean Islands Swim Championships that will be held from Wednesday to Sunday at the same venue.

More than 30 countries from the region are scheduled to compete.

• The Tribune is following Team Bahamas in the build up to the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro and will be reporting from Brazil this summer. The ‘242 on the Road to Rio series’ appears every Monday and Thursday. Comments and responses to bstubbs@tribunemedia.net