The Tribune

By RENALDO DORSETT

Sports Reporter

rdorsett@tribunemedia.net

JUST days before they depart for the first international meet of the summer, the CAC Age Group team was given a proper send-off by the Ministry of Youth, Sports and Culture.

The eight-member team is scheduled to travel to compete in Curacao June 29-30.

Team Bahamas will be led by Doneisha Anderson of TWD Athletics in the girls 13-14 division, two months removed from a CARIFTA bronze medal in the 400 metres. Anderson will be joined by Kristie Collie of Alliance Athletics in the girls 13-14 division.

Tyler Lightbourn of Extreme Athletics and Kennedy Culmer of Golden Eagles will contest the girls 11-12 division. The 11-12 division will feature Blaize Darling of Fast Forward Athletics and Tamasio Bullard of the Golden Eagles.

Branson Rolle of High Performance and Kenron Bain of Neymor Athletics will represent Team Bahamas in the boys 13-14 division.

The 11-12 group competes in the pentathlon, which features the long and high jumps, ball throw, 60 metres, 800m (girls) and 1,000m (boys).

The 13-14 group competes in the heptathlon, comprising of the long and high jumps, ball throw, shot put, 60m hurdles, 80m, 1,000m (girls) and 1,200m (boys).

Anderson totalled 1,772 points to win her division at the trials earlier this month, while Collie finished with 1,626 points. Bain finished second in his group with 2,071 points while Rolle finished third with 1,993.

Culmer topped the girls 11-12 group with 1,103 points and Lightbourn finished second with 1,053. Darling led the points total in the boys 11-12 group with 1,358 points, while Bullard scored 1,222.

Following the trials, BAAA public relations officer Tonique Williams said she was optimistic about the performance expected of the team in Curacao.

“The performances were extremely well. The kids did, of course, the required amount of events. For any advanced athlete, that is a lot of work. What I witnessed out there was a lot of determination and guts. We had some really, really good performances and it really spoke about the type of athletes that we have coming up in the country,” she said.

“I had the chance to sit some persons who worked with this team before like past head coach Keno Demeritte and past statistician Bernard Newbold and based on the persons who would have qualified for this team, I think we are in a position to win again. We won twice before and we have been trailing Barbados in the past few times, but if the team is managed right, with the athletes we have to work with, we feel we can win it this year.”

The trials was pushed back from Friday and got started on Saturday. It finished on Sunday night. The team is now expected to be named sometime this week, but Williams said generally the two top finishers in each category will be given first preferences to the selection process.

The (CAC) Age Group Championships are an international track and field athletics event for the youngest athletes (boys and girls between the age of 11 and 14 years) organised by the Central American and Caribbean Athletic Confederation.

The CAC Age Group Championships started in 1985, hosted in Curacao and are held every two years.

The intention was for athletes at that young age to have experiences with a variety of events .

The Bahamas has finished second to Barbados since 2005 in the biannual championships. However, the Bahamas has won the title twice in 2001 and in 2003.

The 2001 championships were held in the Bahamas for the first time at the Grand Bahama Sports Complex. Olympians Debbie Ferguson-McKenzie, Raymond Higgs and Shaunae Miller have all participated in the meet in the past. Additionally, this year’s CARIFTA members Danielle Gibson, Pedyra Seymour and Delano Davis competed in the meet.