The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

IT’S the first week of 2015 and already there is a lot of excitement brewing within the various sporting organisations. 

• Here’s a preview of what’s on the agenda for some of them:

OLYMPIC SPORTS

Bahamas Olympic Committee

“WE have two games this year, the Pan Am Games in July in Toronto, Canada and the Commonwealth Youth Games in Singapore in September, so those are the two events we are looking for this year,” said BOC president Wellington Miller. “ We hope to see a lot of the athletes from this side of the region, so we will get to see who we are going to go up against in the Olympics or the qualifying events leading up to the games.

“So it will give us a good idea of where we are going into the Olympics next year. The Pan Am Games is the biggest event in this region this year, so we’re looking forward to putting together a very good team to represent the Bahamas.”

Coming off a busy year that included the Commonwealth Games, the Central American and Caribbean Games, the Pan Am Festival and the Youth Olympic Games, Miller said the BOC was kept busy and they also had a chance to send some of the coaches off to courses so that they can certify themselves to coach at the international level and they anticipate doing the same thing again this year.

THROWING BLOWS

Amateur Boxing Association of the Bahamas

WHILE the election of officers was postponed from last year, Wellington Miller said they are just waiting on the IABA to ratify their constitution so that they can stage their elections.

“We have to give a three-month notice before we have elections, so I’m looking forward to us getting our constitution back so that we can have the elections,” said Miller, who also serves as the ABAB president.

“They keep saying that they will send it, but they haven’t done so yet. They told us that they have about 196 constitutions to peruse and go through, so we just have to wait until they are finished so that we can have our election so that organisation can move on.”

Whenever the elections are held, Miller is not expected to seek another four-year term in office, having served from 2000.

SWINGING THE BATS

Bahamas Softball Federation

“WE hope that the associations start their seasons on time and the players abide by the rules and regulations of their associations and the associations don’t disenfranchise the players and allow them to participate,” said outgoing BSF president Burkett Dorsett. 

“I know we had some amendments to our constitution, which should come into effect this year. One of the changes is to allow those islands or associations, which are not playing softball, to allow those players to join their association once they comply with the federation’s rules and regulations.

Next week, Dorsett said the English Caribbean Softball Confederation (ECAST) is expected to hold a press conference to announce plans for a major tournament that will be held here at the end of March for the senior men.

“We already have confirmation from Aruba, Belize, the Cayman Islands, the British Virgin Islands, the Turks and Caicos, Caracas, the Bahamas and possibly Bermuda,” said Dorsett, who serves as the president of the international regional body.

“I would expect the association to announce the format for the selection of its team in short order,” said Dorsett.

He has spent the past 36 years in the front office and does not intend to run for president of the BSF when the elections are held after the Easter holiday, but he will be seeking another three-year term for the ECAST, which has a four-year term.

The induction of Oria ‘Big O’ Wood as a player and Romell Knowles as an administrator into the International Softball Federation will be held in March when the president of the World Baseball Softball Congress, Riccardo Fraccari, will be visiting the Bahamas along with the International Softball Federation president Dale McMann.

SPLASH IN THE POOL

Bahamas Swimming Federation

IF last year was any indication, federation president Algernon Cargill said they are looking at another banner year as they compete in the Pan American Games in Toronto, Canada and the FINA World Championships, which are the springboards for the qualifications for the Olympic Games in 2016.

“So we expect to field a very strong team for the Pan American Games and provide the opportunity for our swimmers to qualify for the Olympic Games and to also win our first Pan Am individual medal, which we have never done in the history of the Pan Am Games,” Cargill said.

“The performance of the federation in 2014 was outstanding in that we won the CARIFTA Championships, we did extremely well at the CISC with a very small team and we won medals at the Commonwealth Games, a medal at the Youth Olympic Games and AriannaVanderpool-Wallace came back and made the final at the FINA World Short Course Championships. She won medals at CAC along with Joanna Evans and she won a medal at the Commonwealth Games.”

While they were pleased with the success of Vanderpool-Wallace and Evans, Cargill said they are hoping to get some additional swimmers to excel at the international level.

“One of the biggest disappointments for us is that although swimming has achieved a lot of success, we are still not getting the corporate support that we need to be successful,” he said. “The Bahamas won the CARIFTA swimming in 2014 for the first time and we would expect to repeat as champions this year and that is primarily because we have the same team returning.

“But apart from the Bahamas government, we are still not getting the support from corporate Bahamas in order for us to do the things that we need to continue to excel. We hope that we can get some support as we go to Barbados for our first international meet to defend our title at the CARIFTA Games in Barbados over the Easter holiday, the same time as the CARIFTA track and field meet.”

LET’S PLAY BALL

Bahamas Baseball Federation

WITH the resolution of the two-decade old bitter dispute within the Bahamas Baseball Association that saw the creation of the BBF, federation president Craig ‘Salty’ Kemp said they will honour the agreement that was reached with BBA president James ‘Jim’ Wood just before he died in December.

“We will still continue to run our isolated programmes, but we will get together early in the year to look at the tournaments on the calendar and we will make a determination together as to which tournaments we will try to attend,” Kemp said. “We will select the national teams and try to attend those tournaments.

“There maybe some initiatives that may derive from our working relationship, but that will be on an on-going basis. But the plans that have been finalised and confirmed are for our national programme. So we are looking forward to a very successful year with our member associations doing what they have always been doing and that is to develop the young men in our country.” 

With the announcement of the construction of the new baseball stadium in the Baillou Hills Sporting Complex, Kemp said they are looking forward to seeing that become a reality so that they can resume playing senior baseball because there is no programme in place to help the youngsters when they graduate from high school or return from school in the United States.

This is also an election year and Kemp has indicated that there is a strong possibility that he will be seeking another three-year term in office. He has served for the past six terms, spanning 12 years, just short of the longest serving position held by secretary Teddy Sweeting from the inception of the federation.

TIME TO PEDAL

Bahamas Cycling Federation

AFTER getting the national team to travel to compete at both the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland and the Central American and Caribbean Games in Veracruz, Venezuela, BCF president Roy Colebrooke said they have already intensified their training in preparation for this year’s Pan American Games in Toronto, Canada in July.

“We have a goal in mind in 2016 and that is to make the Olympic Games, so this year is a year for us to try to make some podium and for our country to be more recognised,” Colebrooke said. “We want to ensure that our guys are ready for the challenge ahead of us.”

One of the things the federation intends to do this year is to travel to the United States where they can take advantage of the high level of training there so that they can be race ready and not just wait for the international events whenever they come up and they just start competing then. The federation also intends to do some training in Cuba.

“So we have a lot on our agenda when it comes to cycling on that level,” Colebrooke said. “But we have a lot of events on the local scene, which is being organised by he New Providence Amateur Cycling Association headed by Barron ‘Turbo’ Musgrove. So we intend to keep our cyclists in tip-top shape this year.”

KICKING THE BALL

Bahamas Football Association

WITH a number of programmes already in existence, following their election of officers last year, BFA president Anton Sealey said they got another feather in their cap when they won the bid to host the 2016 FIFA World Beach Soccer Tournament.

“We are looking to go into more of the Family Islands like Abaco to see if we can continue to build on our national team because we have a number of international tournaments that we will be engaged in, including the 2016 FIFA World Beach Soccer Tournament,” he said. “We also have some youth tournaments that we hope to compete in as well this year.

“So again, we are hoping to make use of the (new Thomas A Robinson) national stadium and bring in one or two professional teams to play there. We also will be hosting a major football conference here in the first quarter of the year, which is yet to be announced.”

Sealey said the recently elected officers are very enthusiastic to get to work and he’s going to ensure that they go out there and take the sport to a higher level.

“We also want to try and improve the high school competition, including the government schools. We will try to sit with the Ministry of Education to see how we can better structure that programme and lend a little more assistance to them in bringing a little more organisation to that competition,” he said.

“Also, we want to expand on our coaching programme and in the first quarter, we hope to bring in a new techinical director who will be in charge of expanding our grass roots programme. That is something that we are very excited about. He’s a highly trained individual out of the UK, who should be here this week.”

SPIKING THE BALL

Bahamas Volleyball Federation

“This year, I think we have qualified for the Pan American Games in Canada in July,” said BVF president Rev Joseph ‘Joe Mo’ Smith, whose sport swung into high gear last year. “We qualified for the Central American and Caribbean Games with our victory over Colombia that moved us in the top sixth spot in NORCECA, so we will be channelling all of our efforts towards that.

“We also have another session where we will bring in another high level coach to work with our national team between March and May to get the team ready because we will also be concentrating on our junior and youth national teams this year. So we still have a lot of work to do this year.”

While they have to go through a vigorous training to maintain its level of competitiveness, Smith said they have to look at the infusion of some younger talent and that is why the junior programme is going to be so vital to the growth of the sport. However, Smith said they are now challenged to get the women’s programme on par because they don’t want to leave them too far behind as they go through their rebuilding process.

“I think 2014 was a bitter-sweet year. Even though we didn’t return as champions of COSAVA, we moved up several rankings in the world,” Smith said. “The bitter part of it is our women’s programme needs to rebuild. We have some young girls and although we were not successful in the CVC, I hope they understand the level that we need them to reach in order to be competitive.”

And with an average of 5-feet, 6-inches and 5-7, Smith said they are severely out-matched when they play countries whose tams have players averaging atleast 6-0 and above. “We need to get out there and hunt for some bigger girls so that we can get to the next level,” Smith said.

DRIBBLING THE BALL

Bahamas Basketball Federation

THE federation will be gearing up for its election of officers for the next four-year term in Abaco and Charlie ‘Softly’ Robins said he intends to return as he seeks to complete some of his mandate that he didn’t in his first term.

“I have some unfinished business that I projected to happen with the Family Islands. I was able to give some members from the Family Islands on my executive team so that when something happens they can come directly to me to discuss some of the things that needs to happen in the Family Islands,” he said.

“We got that accomplished, but my main goal, which I really wanted to accomplish was to start a high school nationals and that is what I want to see happen between 2015-2016 once we get in and settled because we really need that to improve the level of play in the Family Islands.”

As for their overall goals, Robins said they were able to attract more of the professional players to play for the national team, with the exception of the Central American and Caribbean Games, which came a bit too late of a notice in terms of the Bahamas getting the confirmation of qualifying.

“We tried to use a collegiate national coach to coach our national team and through him, we were able to take some of our national team players to Colorado to practice to let them see what is going and we were able to win the CVC, which we had not won in about 20 years,” Robins said.

“We now have about 100 officials, which will help tremendously with our national programmes in the high schools and I think we can now try to get a cohesive coaching programme together, not just in Nassau and Grand Bahama, but throughout the Family Islands. If we can get that done, we will have everybody in sync. So there’s more to be done.”

The 2015 season is now in full gear.