The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

THEY originally wanted to host it here, but the North American, Central American and Caribbean had to take the New Life Invitational, with more than $75,000 being offered in cash prizes, to Miramar, Florida, on Saturday, June 5.

NACAC president Mike Sands said the plan was to stage the event at the Thomas A Robinson National Stadium, which serves the new home of NACAC. But after they were denied permission by the Bahamas government, they moved the meet to Florida.

“The NACAC New Life Invitational is part of our strategic plan to create more meets in our area,” said Sands, who noted that athletes will also get a chance to qualify for the postponed 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan.

“We recognize that there were not sufficient meets in our area, so we undertook the task to put on more meets, along with our member associations like USATF (United States Track and Field Federation), who are doing the same in their domain.”

As they continue to build the stage for a NACAC circuit, where athletes in the region will have an opportunity to compete in the event that they don’t get a chance to qualify for the major international meets on the World Athletics’ stage.

“We had this meet scheduled last year and like everything, we had to keep pushing it back,” said Sands, of the previously postponed date of May 29-30.

“We pushed it back to June 5 and we were hoping that it would have been here because Nassau and the Bahamas is a favorite destination for many events, particularly track and field.”

After they were denied the approval to host the meet here, Sands said they had to move it to Miramar, Florida where the response from our athletes in the NACAC area has been overwhelming.

“We are anticipating over 150 athletes from within our area to participate,” he proclaimed. “We are also expected to have athletes from outside of our region compete as well.”

Athletes from Nigeria, Ireland and Great Britain have also expressed an interest to participate, but Sands said while they will entertain them, they will not be included to the exclusion of any athlete who wants to compete from the NACAC region.

The meet, while has been pegged as a Silver level meet by World Athletics, will provide a level of competition that could allow a number of athletes and relay teams to qualify for the Olympics in Tokyo from July 23 to August 8.

The level of gold, silver and bronze by World Athletics is based on the amount of prize money being presented to the athletes for the various events they will be participating in from first to sixth place.

“World Athletics has a budget from our competition budget that they will be injecting into the meet,” Sands said. “They have allocated $75,000 that they are spreading across 10 events.

“They will direct what level of payment will be made to each event. So we will disburse the funds based on the criteria they have set for each event for a Silver event.”

It will also afford those countries who didn’t get a chance to qualify their teams for the men and women 4 x 100 and 4 x 400m as well as the mixed gender 4 x 400m relay teams to qualify for the final deadline at the end of June.

In order for relay teams to qualify, they must do so in a meet that will feature three or more countries. The Bahamas, Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago, Antigua and Mexico, who all didn’t go to the World Athletics’ Relays in Poland last month, will be allowed to either secure a qualifying spot or improve on their current position.

“It’s an opportunity for all countries to take advantage of it,” said Sands, adding that Nigeria has also indicated that they want to compete in the relay events. “It’s an opportunity for the member federations to take advantage of.”

More details on the exact events and the amount of participants from each country will be released shortly.