BAHAMAS MAKES BIG STEP FORWARD

Jamaica has once again emerged victorious at the CARIFTA Games that concluded over the weekend. This country, dubbed the sprint factory or the Caribbean king and queens of track and field, ended the championships with 66 medals to top the table ahead of Trinidad, Bahamas and Barbados.  Overall, Jamaica has won the CARIFTA Games 35 times since the championships began in 1972. It is instructive to note that The Bahamas are the next best with three titles. Bermuda and Martinique each have one title.

The Bahamas have always been just behind Jamaica in relation to the athletic talent it produces. Frank Rutherford, Chris Brown, Avard Moncur, Pauline Davis, Troy Kemp, Debbie Ferguson-McKenzie, Savatheda Fynes, Derrick Atkins, Tonique Williams, and Chandra Sturrup created the proud legacy of which Bahamas is incredibly proud.

These athletes match up well enough to Jamaica’s very rich legacy of great athletes including the likes of Arthur Wint, Derrick Rhoden, Les Laing and Herb McKenley, Lennox Miller, Donald Quarrie, Merlene Ottey, Juliet Cuthbert, Sandi Richards, Gregory Haughton, Dionne Hemmings, Asafa Powell, Veronica Campbell Brown, Shelly Ann Fraser, Sherone Simpson, Nesta Carter, Michael Frater, Melaine Walker, Trecia Smith and of course the great Usain Bolt.

The thing is Jamaica has 10 times the population of the Bahamas but they won a World Championship 4x100m relay gold medal before Jamaica,  back in 1999. They have also accomplished something else that Jamaica hasn’t – a gold medal at the World Championships in the high jump. Bahamian Troy Kemp took the title in 1995. There are also other feats that they accomplished before Jamaica, the reputed kings of the sport in the region.

Of the generation to come Bahamas boasts the likes of Shaunae Miller, the 2010 World Junior 400-metre champion and now Athonique Strachan, the young miss, who won the Austin Sealy Award at these latest games. Strachan took the sprint double and now shares the U-20 200 metre record with Jamaica’s sprint queen Veronica Campbell-Brown.

Strachan also represents the rising tide of Bahamian male and female junior sprinters who dominated the short sprints at CARIFTA. Had it not been for Jahzeel Murphy and Kemar Bailey Cole Jamaica would have been locked out of the gold medal rush for the sprint titles in the blue riband event.

But while they are clearly punching well above their weight class, can the Bahamas really challenge Jamaica for the title of sprint kings of the Caribbean? The answer I believe will have to be no, but they can come close. Bahamas has embarked on a national programme to get more coaches trained so as to get better results from their junior athletes and it will get better still. In fact, I would venture to say that in the years to come the Bahamas will start to see even better results at the senior level and even rival Jamaica in terms of the average medal haul at major championships like the World Championships and the Olympic Games.

Currently the Bahamas averages about two or so medals per championship, while Jamaica manages to pull in about six per championship. However, Jamaica’s haul in the last three ‘majors’ were 10,11, and 13 medals respectively, numbers that suggest we are on our way up but our haul will never been 10 times as many as the Bahamas.

At the junior level the Bahamas have certainly asserted itself. They, like Jamaica, fielded a 70-member team and they came away with 31, less than half Jamaica’s tally but when one considers the pool that Jamaica has to choose from, you can see where the Bahamians are punching way above their weight class level and by virtue of that, is easily the best of the best of the smaller countries in the region.

But can they ever surpass Jamaica? Not likely. When one considers that several of Jamaica’s top junior athletes were not even at CARIFTA, Ristanana Tracey, chief among them, Jamaica could have easily come away from these recently concluded games with 75 medals and perhaps a few more gold ones as well. Because of the timing of these games, several schools preparing for Boys and Girls Champs held their athletes back from the CARIFTA trials and still Jamaica dominated.

In addition, Bahamas may have dominated the sprints but Jamaica won all but one of the relays – 4x100m and 4x400m. That speaks to our depth of our talent. The Bahamas might be able to produce one or two first class athletes, but Jamaica, under its current system, has the capacity to produce much, much more.

By sheer numbers Jamaica will continue to dominate but the Bahamas, by the latter’s sheer tenacity they have staked their claim, and rightfully so, as the next best thing in the region.