The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

A BAHAMIAN Olympian and his consultancy company in Houston, Texas could be sued for allegedly reneging on a financial deal to accommodate a group of athletes from England in a training site in Texas.

Grand Bahamian quarter-miler Demetrius Pinder and his DP Management Company are being accused of financial mismanagement and abandonment by a visiting group of seven athletes and their coaches from the United Kingdom.

Speaking on behalf of the group, Umar Hameed, a British-Pakintani sprinter, said all they want is for Pinder to provide them with some remuneration so they can deal with the hardship they are experiencing away from home.

Hameed said they paid DP Management the sum of $5,800 for their stay in Texas to train from March 27 to May 6. The deal would have provided them with two accommodations, two cars and access to both a gym and training facilities.

However, on their arrival at the George Bush International Airport on March 27, they said they were escorted to the rental company where they discovered they will only have access to the car for three days.

Immediately they contacted Pinder, who reportedly instructed them the matter would be sorted out before they had to return the rental. They proceeded to the living accommodations but, on the third day, they said they were told by the property management they had to leave because their time had expired.

Again the group contacted Pinder and they said he promised to meet them to explain the situation. From their initial meeting, they said they were told their deposit was not received on time by his company and so they could not secure the original deal as promised. Efforts to contact Mr Pinder by The Tribune were unsuccessful yesterday. According to the documents filed, he advised the group that they were unable to fulfill the original deal and they were seeking some type of compensation.

A date was set for payment to be made to the group, but that fell through as well.

After threatening to get police involved and eventually exposing Pinder to the media, Mr Hameed said it wasn’t until last Wednesday that they received $1,300 of the agreed amount that was promised.

Hameed said this was totally unacceptable because they had to secure funding from home in England to assist them with the reminder of their stay in Texas, which also included competing in a few meets where they had to pay entry fees. They have since relocated to Fort Worth.

The group of athletes, according to Mr Hameed, contacted Mr Pinder, who had visited England and initially agreed to assist them in their training camp in Texas. Mr Hameed said it’s unfortunate that it came down to this, but they just want to receive what is due to them.

Pinder, 34, was a member of the Bahamas men’s gold medal winning 4 x 400 metre relay at the 2012 Olympics in London with Chris Brown, Michael Mathieu and Ramon Miller. He also got a bronze on the relay team at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and competed on two silver medal relay teams at the World Relays in 2014 and 2015 in Nassau.