Athletics Season Set to be among the best
For yet another year Team Athletics St Vincent and the Grenadines (TASVG) the national governing body for the sport of athletics, began its programme in the very first week, continuing its trend in recent years, setting the pace for national sports across the nation.
For the past several years, athletics has been the leading international achiever among Vincentian sporting organisations.
2024 was a spectacular year for athletics in this country as for the first time we had an athlete in the final of an Olympic event, the 800m for women. Not only was Shafiqua Maloney a finalist in an event at the Olympics but was competitive enough to emerge the fourth placed athlete in the exciting contest.
Only Eswort Coombs of Chateaubelair had made it to the semi-final at the Olympics before Shafiqua.
The fact is that we have been growing in athletics for some time and our athletes have been the first on any team to multi-sport international Games since the weightlifters and the lone boxing Commonwealth gold medallist, Frankie Lucas, made our honours list in sport.
Despite all criticisms, athletics continues to be the shining light amongst all sporting disciplines practised in St Vincent and the Grenadines, since its formal establishment in 1982.
It should also be noted that our athletes who have been at schools and training in Jamaica, have all moved on to universities in the USA, via athletics scholarships that they would not have otherwise attained.
Earl Simmons of Union Island had such a good year that he emerged at the fastest sprinter over 100m that this country has ever produced. His 10.11 achievement has ushered him amongst the best in the Caribbean over the distance. He has also been adopted by a club in Jamaica.
Our second fastest 100m athlete, McKish Compton, of Bequia, excelled both on the track and in the classroom. He is now pursuing post graduate studies whilst continuing his training in athletics.
The 2025 season
Development Meets
From the beginning of 2025, our Vincentian athletes, at home and abroad, showed an eagerness to rise to excellence in the sport of athletics.
TASVG has continued its Development Meets which allowed for its selectors to see the progress that athletes have made for the camps facilitated by the National Olympic Committee in the summer vacation of 2024, which allowed for their preparations for the competitive season of 2025.
For the most part, the Development Meets witnessed the progress made by athletes in the preparatory phase. This was impressive and those who had progressed over the previous year had maintained a work ethic with their coaches that allowed the national federation to feel justly proud.
IPSAC
Clearly, the athletes from the Southern Grenadines, always so appropriately prepared for the Inter Primary Schools Athletics Championships (IPSAC), are at a major disadvantage for this year’s competition but are nonetheless expected to mount a major challenge to their opponents. Some students are still at home in the Southern Grenadines while others are on St Vincent. Not training together will, unfortunately, have a negative impact on their overall performance and ultimate results in the IPSAC.
The initiative of the Ministry of Education and National Reconciliation to gradually introduce teachers at the Primary schools’ level to become physical educators, is most welcome and, over time, will yield a higher level of preparedness of the nation’s children for both physical fitness and sport competition.
Already, at the primary schools’ level, we have witnessed a higher level of commitment to hard work in preparing for the annual athletics’ season. There is a considerable increase in participation and higher levels of achievement. Parents are now more disposed to encouraging their children to participate in athletics and also, to attend competitions in which they are involved.
The 2025 IPSAC should reveal a generation of athletes who are better prepared for the competition as well as more committed to going forward with athletics well beyond their years at the primary school level.
The introduction of a semi-final round to the IPSAC has allowed children to have an additional chance of getting to the finals, which should generally, yield better overall performances.
At the primary school level, therefore, athletics continues to enjoy the highest level of participation in any sport practised in St Vincent and the Grenadines.
With the Age Group Championships (11-12, 13-14 years) for the North American, Central American and Caribbean (NACAC Athletics) Championships scheduled for Nicaragua, 4 – 6 July 2025, there is every chance that more of our children would be better prepared to favourably compete with their regional counterparts.
ISSAC
The annual Inter Secondary Schools Athletics Championships for 2025v will undoubtedly be one of the most closely contested.
Over the past few years, the Central Leeward Secondary School (CLSS) has easily copped the female component of the Championships and once defeated Grammar School for the Boys’ Championships. Last year, Grammar School won the Boys title in the final set of events.
2025 seems set to be a very different competition.
The Troumaca-Ontario Secondary School (TOSS) has benefitted from several students who have moved over from the CLSS. Additionally, some student athletes have been working well and have made significant progress, enough to mount a major challenge in the race for Championship honours.
Last year we witnessed the resurgence of the Girls’ High School (GHS) in athletics. In September 2024, the GHS won the annual TASVG Round D Town Road Relay Secondary Schools’ segment, for the first time in a decade.
The development of athletics at the GHS has continued and the school appears to have engaged in more deliberate strategic athletics development to such an extent that the team for this year’s ISSAC may well improve on last year’s results where they copped third place.
In the Boys’ category, the St Vincent Grammas School seems very well prepared to carry the honours. However, both the CLSS and TOSS appear eager to do battle, with the latter appearing much hungrier for success than hitherto.
Carifta Trials 2025
Over the last weekend, 1-2 March 2025, TASVG hosted its annual Carifta Championships at which athletes competed for the opportunity to gain selection to the national representative team to the annual Carifta Games.
This year’s 52nd edition of the Carifta Games is scheduled for 19-21 April at the Hasely Crawford Stadium, Port of Spain, Trinidad.
Prior to the Trials, a few athletes had already made the qualifying standards for the national team at Development and individual school competitions. Over the weekend, a few more athletes qualified to make the sojourn to the twin-island Republic.
The nation’s leading home-based student athlete, Keo Davis, unfortunately sustained an injury but TASVG is committed to assisting in his recovery. He is an amazing talented athlete.
The Trials also saw the likes of AJ Delpesche of Troumaca, J’mar Saunders, Leemore Ollivierre, Shaquania Jacobs, Zichri Hepburn, and Delron Delpesche. Make the qualifying standards for Carifta Games 2025.
Other athletes still have the opportunity to make the Carifta standards at the ISSAC Preliminaries and Finals over the next few weeks.
Promotion et al
One of the novel features of athletics in St Vincent and the Grenadines thus far for the 2025 season is the emphasis being placed on the promotion of the several competitions, at all levels.
Advertisements of athletics competitions have found their way on all media formats; a most welcomed feature that has served to bring parents to support their children.
Last year, GHS introduced a series of innovations that generated greater involvement of past and present students, enhanced participation and enthusiastic competition amongst members of all Houses of the institution. This was taken to an even higher level this year.
There is much expectation that the GHS enthusiasm will positively impact the St Vincent Grammar School (SVGS) in the future, to the extent that as the nation’s most populated educational institution, it can host its own athletics championships, at a level befitting its stature in the nation’s legacy, in sport, as in educational development.
Everywhere, news of individual schools’ athletics championships was highly featured.
It remains an unfortunate reality that many of the schools are constrained to use the Victoria Park, a venue that no longer meets the fundamental requirements of the standard of athletics that has been emerging and continues to emerge in St Vincent and the Grenadines.
The thrust by VC3 to provide coverage of athletics competition is now at a point where its investment in new equipment and appropriately trained and qualified personnel have borne fruit.
All of St Vincent and the Grenadines must applaud the growth and development of VC3 and eagerly await future developments.
Wendell Hercules Nationals 2025
TASVG’s announcement that this year’s National Championships would feature our best overseas-based athletes and those that are home-based, in aggressive competition at the Stadium in Diamond. This should be a major ‘must-see’ athletics event for all Vincentians. The National Championships, already named after Wendell Hercules, should, in this year of 2025, be a watershed moment for all Vincentian athletes, past, present and future.
