The Tribune

FIVE of the six men who won the silver medal in the 4 x 400 metre relay at the XXI Commonwealth Games in the Gold Coast, Australia, are expected to represent the Bahamas in the same event at the 124th annual Penn Relays.

The team of Alonzo Russell, Michael Mathieu, Stephen Newbold, Ramon Miller and Teray Smith will compete in the 4 x 400m in the USA versus the World in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on Saturday.

Ojay Ferguson, who ran the pop-off leg, will be the only person missing from the team. Ferguson, Russell, Mathieu and Miller clocked three minutes and 04.62 for the third qualifying time in their heat. In the final, Ferguson, Smith, Newbold and Russell ran a season’s best of 3:01.92 for the silver behind Botswana and ahead of Jamaica.

In addition to the Bahamas and two USA teams competing, Canada and Jamaica will also have a team.

Also, the Bahamas will field a women’s sprint medley, comprising of Sheniqua ‘Q’ Ferguson and triple jumper Tamara Myers in the 100m, TyNia Gaither in the 200m and Katrina Seymour in the 400m. That team will face two USA teams and one each from Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica and Trinidad in the USA vs the World match-up.

Bahamas Association of Athletic Associations president Rosamunde Carey said the Bahamas opted only to compete in those two events because of the availability of athletes.

The Bahamas will not participate in the men’s and women’s 4 x 100, women’s 4 x 400m and the men’s sprint medley.

The two relay teams will be a part of a contingent from the Bahamas that includes the University of the Bahamas in the university division and high school teams from St Augustine’s College and St John’s College as well as Grand Bahama’s Bishop Michael Eldon and Tabernacle Baptist Academy.

“I expect for them to go out there and do the best they can,” said Carey, who will be in attendance at the relays as an observer. “I expect for the 4 x 4 guys to be in the mix. I spoke to them and they are all excited to go down and represent the Bahamas.

“The women are the same. They are looking forward to going down and representing the country well. I know Katrina, TyNia, Sheniqua and Tamara are all excited to go down and compete for the Bahamas. So I expect for them to go out there and do the best that they can.”

Carey said it’s unfortunate that Steven Gardiner will not be a part of this team as his US-based promotional team, On Track Management, are not associated with the Penn Relays, so he may be competing at the Drake Relays.

And both Shaunae Miller-Uibo, the women’s 200m gold medallist at the Commonwealth Games and Anthonique Strachan, who ran through the semi-final, are both nursing slight injuries and will not be available.

The Bahamas was scheduled to run the women’s 4 x 100m in Australia, but had to withdraw at the start of the final because of the slight injury to Miller-Uibo. The event went to a straight final after only eight teams were registered to compete.

As for the other athletes, Carey said they are either not available because of school commitments or they are in training mode and not yet ready to compete in the case of veteran Chris ‘Fireman’ Brown and Demetrius Pinder.

Brown, Pinder, Mathieu and Miller were all in Grand Bahama on Monday for an unveiling of a mural to honour their gold medal winning performance at the 2012 Olympic Games in London, England.

The team will be coached by Pharez Cooper out of Grand Bahama and managed by Marcian Dorsett. The Penn Relays is the oldest and largest uninterrupted track and field collegiate meet in the United States, hosted annually since April 21, 1895 by the University of Pennsylvania at Franklin Field in Philadelphia.

Live coverage of the event will be carried live on NBCSN and NBC Sports Gold 12:30 to 3pm on Saturday.