The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

IN what turned out to be her defining years as a junior athlete, Lavern Eve became the first of two Bahamians to win the Austin Sealy Award as the most outstanding athlete at the CARIFTA Games.

But what defined her performance the most was the fact that she did it by winning three throwing events on the field.

Her first triumph in the shot put, discus and javelin came in 1982 in Kingston, Jamaica, and she duplicated the feat in 1983 in Fort-de-France, Martinique.

And had it not been for sprinter Pauline Davis in 1984, Eve could and should have pulled off an unprecedented third straight feat when she achieved the same level of success and even more at home, adding a fourth place in the high jump to her repertoire at home as the Bahamas won for the final time.

It has been more than two decades since she became the second Austin Sealy winner behind sprinter Maryann Higgs (winner of the title in 1978 here at home as well, only to be followed by four other Bahamians, including Davis (1984), Debbie Ferguson-McKenzie (1995 in the Cayman Islands, Anthonique Strachan (back-to-back as well in 2011 in Jamaica and 2012 in Bermuda) and Shaunae Miller-Uibo (at the last games held in the Bahamas in 2013).

Yet as only one of five athletes to cart off the prestigious trophy, named in honour of the founder of the games, Austin Sealy, Eve said it’s still an honour to have accomplished what she did, even though she wasn’t quite sure what the significance was to the island nation when she did it for the very first time.

“I was never thinking about the Austin Sealy winner because I didn’t even know what it was,” Eve said. “I just wanted to compete, I just wanted to win and I just wanted the Bahamas to win. Doing three field events, I never heard of anyone doing it, so I was glad that I was capable of doing it and to win all three events in all three years. “It was great and when I look back at it now, I’m like ‘wow,’ I won it twice. It’s an awesome achievement. I know nobody has won it doing three events. They might have done it on the track, but not on the field.”

Kareem Streete-Thompson did three events when he followed Eve by taking the under-17 boys long jump, 100 and 200m for the Cayman Islands in Barbados in 1989 and in 1990 in Jamaica, he moved up to the under-20 boys division where he was the long jump champion.

All the other double Austin Sealy winners were on the track and they included Trinidad & Tobago’s Darrel Brown in the under-17 boys sprints in Martinique in 1999 and again in Grenada in 2000 and Jamaican legend Usain Bolt in the under-20 boys sprints in Trinidad & Tobago in 2003 and again in Bermuda in 2004.

Strachan, representing the Bahamas in the under-20 girls sprints, captured her first title in Jamaica in 2011 and added the other in Bermuda in 2012.

For Eve, winning the award for the first time was what really stood out for her, but they both had their special moments.

“It was new to me, I was excited and I didn’t know that there was an award that you can win as an outstanding athlete and when I did achieve it, it was great,” Eve reflected.

“It gave me something to look forward to the following year. I think the second year when I got it, the performances were better. I started to develop in the events. But the first one was more exciting because it was my first time.”

In 1981, Eve said she should have gotten her initial Carifta experience, but she was not allowed to compete after then St Augustine’s College coach Martin Lundy had taken the Big Red Machine track team to a meet in the United States.

On their after missing the Carifta trials at SAC, Eve wasn’t allowed to compete, but the Bahamas Association of Athletics Associations made an exception for Maryann Higgs.

“That was something I wanted to do because I knew I was capable of doing it,” Eve insisted. “I was young and exciting. I wasn’t think about winning. I just wanted the Bahamas to win.

“I thought it was something that I really could do and I made the team the following year and went on to win the Austin Sealy award. It was awesome. I had a wonderful career. Sometimes I look back and I get chills because this was all where I got started.”

Eve, now 52 years old and having retired from competition as a senior athlete in 2012, said the athletes today are not as mentally and physically fit as they were when they competed.

On Wednesday, Eve will return home from Florida where she’s now working with United Health Care in the Member Services to give some encouragement to Team Bahamas and assist the BAAA in the games.

“I know I’ve done a fantastic job and I wouldn’t change anything,” said Eve, who went on to compete in four Olympic Games in 1998 in Seoul, Korea, 1996 in Atlanta, Georgia, 2000 in Sydney, Australia and 2004 in Athens, Greece.

She was a gold and silver medalist in the javelin in two of the four Commonwealth Games she competed in in 2002 in Manchester, England in 2002 and Melbourne, Australia in 2006 and she captured two silver and as many bronze in the Pan American Games.