The Tribune

By TENAJH SWEETING

Tribune Sports Reporter

tsweeting@tribunemedia.net

THE dust has now settled since the inaugural Red-Line Athletics Field Events Classic as well as the Youth Track Classic and coach Tito Moss voiced that the club is constantly looking to improve the delivery of these meets going forward.

The Field Events Classic brought out a number of top performers at the first edition of the event and the Youth Track Classic saw athletes break multiple records at the two-day club meet hosted this past weekend.

Coach Moss was pleased to see athletes leave it all out on the track this late in the season.

“It was really exciting to see so many records being broken this late in the season. Normally, after CARIFTA we have a noticeable fall off in athlete participation but the meet was fun, they seemed to be engaged and we had good participation. It was a very exciting competition and in my club we saw about 25 kids hit new PRs so it was great to see some kids hitting those marks this late in the season,” he said.

Swift Athletics’ Shayann Demeritte got the job done in the under-20 girls’ 100m finals. She came away with a winning time of 12.01 seconds in the 100m event which was a new meet record.

The host club’s Nya Wright and Bayli Major both dipped under Melvinique Gibson’s previous meet record of 12.33 seconds with times of 12.14 and 12.18 seconds for second and third place respectively.

Alexis Roberts, representing Red-Line Athletics, has made significant strides in the 400 metres event this season.

She smashed Gibson’s previous meet record of 1:00.86 and replaced it with her time of 56.22 seconds.

Speed Capacity’s Jasmine Mackey clocked 58.90 seconds for second and Fast Forward’s Taylor Robinson posted 1:00.51 for third.

Nathon King, representing Noble Preparatory Academy, was in top form in the under-15 boys’ 200m finals. He ran a leading time of 24.17 seconds to win the event. Swift Athletics’ Justin Shepherd cruised in at second place and Jayden Ferguson, of the 3PA Stallions, settled with the third position.

In terms of the meet’s delivery, Moss has received criticisms in the past about the lateness of his meets but this time around there was notable improvement.

“We are constantly looking at ways to improve the delivery of the club meets. I think that we found a formula that works. On day one, we got out twelve minutes early and on day two we ran over about 20 minutes. We just want to continue to improve and get better to deliver quality meets that athletes and spectators can enjoy,” he said.

One week prior, Red-Line hosted the field events portion of the club meet which was geared towards giving the field athletes a time to shine.

“The field events carried Team Bahamas at CARIFTA and we have some excellent field event athletes and I just wanted to do an event to give them an opportunity to shine. That was the genesis for hosting this meet. I am looking forward to ways to expand it and make it more attractive for participation to be even higher than it is. This is definitely not gonna be the last time we host an all field events meet,” he said.

The Blue Chip Athletics Club totaled the most points at the event with 210 points. X-Treme Athletics secured the second position with 194 points and third place went to Leap of Faith with 174 points.

According to Moss it is great to see the new generation of athletes carry on The Bahamas’ legacy in the field events.

“The Bahamas has traditionally been very good at field events like the high jump, long jump and triple jump going back years to persons like Troy Kemp and the late Bernard Nottage. To witness this generation continuing that legacy of being excellent field event personnel is not surprising so I look for it to continue.

“Track and field is the one sport that almost everybody can find an event that they can be good in because there are so many events for athletes to find a niche,” he said.

Red-Line Athletics and Coach Moss are hoping to continue to build on the growth achieved over the years and host successful meets again next season.