The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

THE 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, is fast approaching and so is the window of opportunity for Bahamians to qualify to represent the country.

The games is scheduled for August 4-21, but Bahamas Olympic Committee secretary general Romell Knowles said time is slowly slipping away from athletes looking to qualify before the team is ratified in July.

“The obligation of the athlete is to meet the standard set by the international federation in conjunction with the International Olympic Committee,” said Knowles as he set the record straight on the qualification process.

“The second criteria is obviously that the athlete ought to be dope free and be of good character and willing to abide by the rules and regulations of the Bahamas Olympic Committee.”

Once the athlete meets the above requirements, Knowles said the next step is to complete the necessary health procedures in terms of whether or not they are taking any medicine so that the necessary forms can be completed.

“The most pressing deadline would be the qualifying period,” Knowles said. “They are close to ending. Some of the qualifying dates have already ended. Track and field and swimming won’t end until the first or second week of July. But those dates would have been disseminated by the local federations to the athletes.”

While there are more than 20 athletes and two relay teams already qualified in track and field; one swimmer with an A standard and two others with the B standard and one competitor selected for rowing, Knowles said they are waiting on the outcome of the final trials for boxing.

Over the weekend, three more athletes attained the qualifying standards, led by Pedrya Seymour, whose second place finish of 12.92 seconds in the 100 metre hurdles for a new national record was below the qualifying time of 13.00m.

At the same meet in Lincoln, Nebraska, during the Big Ten Conference, Carmiesha Cox clocked 23.16 in the preliminaries of the women’s 200m to go under the standard of 23.20. And in Clermont, Florida, Jamial Rolle added to the list when he ran 10.16 to match the men’s 100m qualifying time.

The AIBA will hold the World Olympic Qualification Event, which serves as the final trials, June 14-26 in Baku, Azerbaijan. All of the spots that have not been completed will be made then.

The Amateur Boxing Association of the Bahamas will be sending at least four boxers to the trials after they failed to qualify at the AOB American Olympic Qualification tournament in Buenos Aires, Argentina, March 11-19.

“We have great expectations for the boxers,” Knowles said. “A part from being very talented, it requires some luck, especially now that this is the final Olympic trials.

“Our athletes have been doing very well in the past and sometimes you get a good draw or you have to fight your way through the qualifying rounds. But we expect them to do very well because most of the top Olympians would have already qualified. So this is an opportunity for them to strut their skills.”

As in the past, Knowles said the BOC is still hard pressed to get the traditional team sports qualified for the games.

“Basketball and volleyball have been the most promising in terms of team competition,” he said. “The challenge is to get all of the athletes, particularly those in college and playing professionally, to get their releases at the same time so that they can work out together.

“There is also a financial agreement in terms of their insurances because the professional athletes will be playing outside of their jobs and so we have to look at how to provide a stipend for them. So the challenge has been both financially and logistics.”

Knowles said they are hoping to engage FIBA in ways to get them to provide more avenues for the smaller countries to be able to qualify for the Olympics in the future.

Volleyball, according to Knowles, is faced with the same dilemma.

“We have to get our team together, which is also a logistic problem, and they have to travel so we have to get the chemistry together, which is also another major challenge for us,” Knowles said.

“But despite the logistics and financial challenges that we are faced with, our teams in basketball and volleyball have done very well in the regional competition, so we will sit down with the leaders of the federations to see how best we can get these teams ready to qualify for 2020.”

With WADA conducting a vigorous doping campaign, Knowles said all of the Bahamian athletes should be prepared to face a random drug testing and so they will have a series of meetings with the athletes to sensitise them to the do’s and don’ts, which could have an adverse effect on their participation in the games.

“We shall be reaching out to them very shortly letting them know what their requirements are,” Knowles said. “We just want to make sure that all of our athletes meet the requirements as set out by the IOC and WADA.”

Knowles said the good thing is that the Bahamian athletes have been clean and none of them want to do anything to jeopardise the good name of the Bahamas and subsequently their families.