Vincentian track and field athletes cop medals at the 49th Carifta Games
On Monday evening the curtains came down on the 49th edition of the Carifta Games at the national stadium in Kingston, Jamaica.
It was a most memorable edition of one of the most enthralling and entertaining track and field competitions in the world, a legacy of the commitment of the peoples of the Caribbean to global sport.
Many often forget that it is athletics, not cricket, that has made the Caribbean known across the world and in a manner that has always been consistent, since Jamaica’s Arthur Wint swept to gold in the 400m at the Summer Olympics in London, UK, in 1948, defeating fellow Jamaican and pre-race favourite, Herb McKinley. Of course, Wint came out of those Olympics with another medal, silver, in the 800m when defeated by USA’s Mal Whitfield.
Today, with a total membership of 214 member federations spread across the world, World Athletics, the governing body for the sport, has grown accustomed to success coming from athletes from the Caribbean at all of its events.
The Carifta Games, the first edition of which was held in Barbados after Trinidad and Tobago defaulted, has been in existence since 1972. Appropriately named after the regional initiative to establish the Caribbean Free Trade Area (CARIFTA), in 1971, the Carifta Games brings together the best youth (U17) and junior (U20) athletes of the region to engage in friendly athletics rivalry.
Over the years, the Carifta Games has become the breeding ground for numerous Caribbean athletes who have since gone on to track and field immortality, something that has not been lost on the global sports fraternity. More than anything else in the Caribbean, with the possible exception of Robert Nesta Marley’s particular brand of Reggae music, athletics has ensured that this region of small islands can match strides with nations from any part of the world.
The legacy of the Carifta Games resonates in every nook and cranny of the Caribbean in a way that no other sport has been able to do, and the world knows and appreciates this reality.
The past two years saw the cancellation of the 49th edition of the Carifta Games which were originally scheduled for Bermuda for 2020. Following the onset of the coronavirus and its impact on all aspects of life across the world and looking forward with optimism, the North American, Central American and Caribbean Area Association (NACAC) of World Athletics agreed to allow Bermuda a second attempt at hosting the 49th edition of the Games. But covid-19 put paid to the plans that were co carefully laid by the sport’s leaders in Bermuda and forced yet another cancellation.
Guyana, which had requested the 50th edition of the Games initially in 2019, started planning for the event early in 2021. The administration there seemed to lose interest and zeal subsequent to the cancellation of the 49th edition of the Games for the second consecutive year and eventually withdrew its offer to host the event in 2022, realising that it would still only be the 49th edition and not the cherished 50th.
Jamaica stepped in and agreed to host the 49th edition following discussions with the NACAC leadership while attending the World Athletics U20 Championships in Nairobi, Kenya, in the Summer of 2021.
The athletics leadership in Jamaica, showed their commitment to the sport, the region and NACAC by immediately acknowledging that the planning required strong, experienced, and stable leadership and called upon the services of Michael Fennell, former resident of the Jamaica Olympic Association and of the Commonwealth Games Federation, to Chair the Local Organising Committee.
Carifta 2022
The results table shows Jamaica, once more heading the medals table with a whopping 92 medals, 45 of which were gold. Bahamas followed with 17 medals, only four of which were gold while British Virgin Islands was next with seven medals of which four were gold.
St Vincent and the Grenadines came away with five medals, two of which were silver and the others, bronze.
At the closing of the 49th edition of the Games, Adaejah Hodge of the British Virgin Islands was adjudged the winner of the Austin Sealy Trophy, usually presented to the athletes with the most outstanding performances at the Games.
Hodge won the U17 100m in the time of 11.29; the long jump with a leap of 6.20m and the 200m in 23.42.
Of course, there were other outstanding athletes at the Games. The Jamaican sprint relay team that established a new world record for the 4 x 100m at the World Athletics U20 in Kenya last year, better the record on Saturday afternoon. This was a team and not an individual and therefore was not considered for the Sealy Trophy.
Also in the hunt for the Sealy Trophy were Keyshawn Strachan of the Bahamas who served up a new Carifta record of 79.89 in the U20 Javelin Throw; Dior-Rae Scott, also of the Bahamas, set a Javelin Throw record in the U17 category (44.57m); Kobe Lawrence of Jamaica, set a Carifta record in the U20 Shot Put of 20.02m; Dionjah of the Jamaica threw the U17 discus to a new Carifta record of 45.32m; and Jadon Hibbert of Jamaica, leapt to a new Carifta record of 16.46m in the U20 triple jump.
Athletes from a total of 22 member federations of the Carifta Family took home medals for their performances at the Carifta Games as they departed Jamaica on Tuesday last.
SportsMax, the host broadcaster of the Games, would have done a very good job of bringing the sporting action, as it happened in Jamaica, to the entire global sports community.
But the athletes were not the only ones to have been afforded the benefit of special recognition at the closing ceremony.
The panel of Area International Technical Officials continued the tradition of presenting the Ester Maynard Trophy to the local technical official serving the Games whom they have adjudged as the most outstanding in the performance of assigned duties. This year the award went to Christopher Richardson of Jamaica. He worked in the horizontal jumps at the Games.
Finally, the world record setting Jamaican U20 team that won the 4 x 100m at last year’s World Athletics U20 Championships, were duly recognised for their achievement at the prestigious competition.
Of major significance at this year’s edition of the Carifta Games is the continuing spread of the medals for which the athletes were competing. Jamaica is the Caribbean home of sprinters but the fact that the U17 British Virgin Islander was able to literally devastate the opponents in the 100m and 200m was easily considered the best individual performance of the competition. He poise and confident victories will forever remain etched in the memories who were there to witness the emphatically epic performances.
That the BVI earned themselves the same number of gold medals as the Bahamas and that also meant four of the seven they won were gold, must be considered a most remarkable achievement.
Team SVG at Carifta 2022
Whenever a national team is selected in this country, regardless of which sport is involved, there is always some measure of rumour-mongering about the selection process, to say nothing of the confusion caused by those who set about arguing over the actual athletes selected.
The public discourse on the merits and demerits of the team’s management is another matter altogether.
The Selection Committee of Team Athletics St Vincent and the Grenadines satisfied themselves that they had engaged in a process that was objective and fair. The decision as something that they could defend.
The general performance of the Vincentian team at Carifta 2022 was highly commendable. The team brought home the most medals thus far by any Carifta Games team in the nation’s history. Although there was no gold in the mix, the performances of the athletes remain an important watershed in the nation’s sporting history.
Special commendation must go to our outstanding U17 athlete, Keo Davis. Many would recall that at this year’s Inter Secondary Schools Athletics Championships (ISSAC), while competing for the St Vincent Grammar School, Davis easily won the 100m and 200m respectively. Although his performances in the sprint events were remarkable, it was his final leg run in the 4 x 400m relay that most in attendance will forever remember.
In Jamaica, he came with a later run in the finals of the 100m to cop the bronze medal. One could nonetheless have seen that he was determined and prepared, despite his humble demeanour.
In the 200m finals, just when many thought he was out of the running he again delivered a late surge that saw him mount the podium yet again, only this time it was for the silver medal.
Of significance too, is the fact that the other three medallists are Vincentian student athletes in Jamaica.
TASVG remains ever grateful to the administrators and coaches at both the Kingston College and Jamaica College for the scholarships awarded to our athletes. Thanks too are in order for the leadership of the GC Foster College where some post-secondary students are located.
Funding has not been easy for those at the GC Foster to access, even from the government and many students and parents are burdened with finding already scarce resources even as some of the athletes themselves and some coaches seem to be only too eager to apportion blame wherever they deem appropriate.
Verrol Sam, Uroy Ryan and Amal Glasgow, each took turns at mounting the medal podium in Jamaica, proudly draped in the Vincentian flag.
The Vincentian community in Jamaica enjoyed the plaudits as they emerged from the appreciative crowd in attendance at what was probably the best organised Carifta Games by Jamaican athletics authorities.
The future
But the achievements of our athletes at this year’s Carifta is consistent with our performances in the previous two editions of this event.
In 2018, we won two gold medals at the Games, led, of course, by Handal Roban’s stunning defeat of the two Jamaicans in the U17 800m.
In 2019, Roban was third in the U20 800m while Ulanda Lewis, just 15 at the time, earned two bronze medals in the 100m and 200m U17 respectively.
The trajectory is to continue to do better and not just at the Carifta level. Our performances at the broader NACAC continues to improve as we showed at the NACAC U23 in Costa Rica last year.
But athletes need financial support. Many at the GC Foster are in need of funding to meet their educational and athletics expenses.
Many here at home are deficient in respect of the nutritional support they need to continue their growth and development, athletically and academically.
Our athletes need much more than moral support. They need food, clothing, assistance with transportation and athletics training and competition gear.
TASVG and the NOC alone cannot satisfy the needs of our athletes if we are to set them on a path of success that adds to an already enriching athletics legacy.
Orde Ballantyne set the stage with his Carifta Gold in the Shop Put but before him, our girls had mounted the podium in the very first edition of the Carifta Games.
Let us commit to facilitating better support for our young people who have already begun to show us their own commitment to Vincentian sporting excellence.
