The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

WITH the Bahamas Association of Athletic Associations’ 2015 track and field season now underway, the expectations are starting to fall into place for the coaches.

Coaches used the Odd Distance Track Classic held over the weekend at the Thomas A Robinson Track and Field Stadium as a gauge to monitor the performances of their athletes going into the rest of the season that will continue with a meet every weekend leading up to the CARIFTA Games in April.

“I was very pleased with the results from our junior programme and our elite programme,” said Dave Charlton of the Star Trackers. “What I love about the Odd Distance meet is that it’s a meet designed for the coaches to gauge the level of conditioning for their athletes.

“So today, we ran some impressive 300 metres, Stephen Newbold looks very good even though we still have some work to do, but I think our athletes will be ready for the international meets coming up.”

Pastor Anthony Williams, who brought in four boys from Moores Island, was extremely pleased.

“Excellent,” was how he summed up their performances. “I was very pleased with them. They made me proud. We had Rocky Jane-Louis, the 800m runner, Mario Deal from Grand Bahama who is living with me, John Hardy and Verdell McIntosh.

“I’m surprised that they ran so well, but the meet is just to see where they are with their strength and their endurance. Speed will always come. We are just working on our strength and endurance and fight the mindset to race no matter what the outcome.”

With that mindset, Williams put it to the rest of the teams in the BAAA National High School Relays that Moores Island will be coming back to retain their senior boys 4 x 400m relay title.

“I don’t feel no school will be within 10m of us,” he said. “We have a surprise for them.”

There was no surprises from Club Monica, who is looking for another banner year as they now enter their 12th season of existence.

“I think the kids performed very well. The CARIFTA trials and the CARIFTA Games are coming up real early this year, so we have to get them ready,” head coach Dianne Woodside said.

“Some of our kids didn’t run because of illnesses like Kieanna Albury and Janae Ambrose, but Charisma Taylor did very well, so did Sasha Knowles and Xavier Coakley. He’s had a great off season because he’s more focused on track than basketball with this being his final year in high school. So I’m looking forward to some great performances this year.”

Another club that made its mark was the Bahamas High Performance Athletic Academy, coached by IAAF councilwoman Pauline Davis-Thompson.

“Out of the gate, I think the performances were very good. A lot of them have been training hard and so I thought we had some good performances today,” Davis-Thompson said. “My kids are still young. We start them at 10 and right now they are on track to continue to do well.”

James Rolle, the BAAA Coach of the Year in 2014, said his Jumpers Inc. squad performed exceptionally well.

“It was great. It was awesome. Everything that we expected them to do, they did better than I expected,” Rolle said. “I put them at a target and everyone went above their target. We’re ready for anything this year. The goal is for everybody to go to CARIFTA and come back with something around their neck and for Ryan Ingraham to medal at the World Championships.”

The Silver Lightning also turned in some good performances, according to head coach Rupert Gardiner.? “This was a test meet. Me and David Charlton call this a coaches meet where we see where our athletes are so we can adjust their training schedule to see if they need more 300 or 500 and then go over their speed work. We have to now get ready for the season.”

This weekend, the T-Bird Flyers Track Club is scheduled to hold the first full blown meet at the stadium 6pm Friday and continue 3pm Saturday.