The Tribune

By RENALDO DORSETT

Sports Reporter

rdorsett@tribunemedia.net

TRACK and field will again take centre stage this week as another group of the country’s elite athletes will represent the Bahamas at the senior level.

Team Bahamas is slated to begin competition tomorrow at the North American, Central American and Caribbean Championships in San Jose, Costa Rica, August 7-9.

The team will be highlighted by several athletes who have already qualified for the IAAF World Championships later this month, including 400 metre hurdles record holder and recent Pan Am Games gold medallist Jeffery Gibson, short sprint hurdlers Adanaca Brown and Devynne Charlton, Shavez Hart, recent qualifier Leevan “Superman” Sands and high jumpers Ryan Ingraham and Donald Thomas.

The team will officially begin action with the preliminaries of the men’s 100m at 8m local time, featuring Hart and Johnathan Farquharson.

According to the provisional entry lists for the event, Hart comes in with the eighth fastest seed time of 10.10 seconds, while Farquharson is ranked 21st in the 35-man field at 10.38.

The action will shift to the field when Tamara Myers is slated to compete in the women’s triple jump, ranked No.6 with a season’s best of 13.41 metres.

Ingraham and Barry will take on the high jump at 9:15am, ranked No. 3 and No. 4 respectively, with identical season best jumps of 2.28m.

Following the semi-finals of the men’s 4x100m relay, the next individual event will be the 400m semi-finals for both genders.

The women’s event begins at 10am featuring seventh seeded Lanece Clarke (52.43) and 15th seeded Christine Amertil (53.66).

In the men’s event, LaToy Williams comes in ranked No.4 with a season’s best of 45.30 while Ramon Miller is ranked sixth at 45.36.

With 24 participants, the women’s 100m will also go to a straight semi-final featuring collegiate athletes Tynia Gaither and Tayla Carter.

Gaither is ranked No.7 at 11.27 and Carter comes in at No.15 with a time of 11.52.

Following the men’s 100m semi-finals, Brown and Charlton will take on the 100m hurdles at 11:25am. Ranked fourth and fifth respectively, both enter with identical seed times of 13.00.

Session two opens at 2pm local time, with the women’s 200m prelims with Carmeisha Cox representing the Bahamas ranked No.12 at 23.33.

In the men’s prelims, Elroy McBride will be the lone Bahamian competitor, ranked 20th at 20.94.

The first opportunity for a medal will come when Sands competes in the men’s triple jump at 2:35pm. He comes in as the top ranked jumper with his 16.99m done at last month’s Pan Am Games.

The semi-finals of the 400m hurdles will be next on the track when Katrina Seymour runs in the women’s semi-final at 2:45pm, ranked 13th at 57.73.

Gibson will run the men’s semi-final at 3:10pm and his time of 48.51 comes in ranked second behind Javier Culson of Puerto Rico at 48.48.

Lester Taylor, the only middle distance runner for Team Bahamas, will contest the men’s 800m semi-final.

The semi-finals of the 200m will close out competition on day one, beginning at 4pm.

The last of the six IAAF areas to hold a continental senior athletics competition, the NACAC Championships’ inaugural edition was held in 2007 in San Salvador, El Salvador.

Three hundred athletes competed at the 2007 Championships and a total of 26 nations were represented.

The United States dominated the first edition with a total of 43 medals, including 28 gold medals. Mexico and Trinidad and Tobago took second and third places with totals of 20 and 11 medals respectively.

This year’s event will feature 31 countries and approximately 400 athletes participating.

TEAM BAHAMAS

Women

100m

Tynia Gaither

Tayla Carter

200m

Carmeisha Cox

400m

Christine Amertil

Lanece Clarke

100mH

Adanaca Brown

Deyvnne Charlton

400mH

Katrina Seymour

Long Jump

Bianca Stuart

Triple Jump

Tamara Myers

MEN

100m

Shavez Hart

Johnathan Farquharson

200m

Elroy McBride

400m

Latoy Williams

Ramon Miller

800m

Lester Taylor

400mH

Jeffrey Gibson

Long Jump

Raymond Higgs

Triple Jump

Leevan Sands

High Jump

Ryan Ingraham

Trevor Barry

STAFF

Coach -  Rupert Gardiner

Manager -  Dexter Bodie

Assistant Manager -  Tonique Williams