Princess Margaret’s versatile hurdler Anika Blackman, St Michael’s javelin thrower Vanessa Greaves and Harrison College’s high jumper Tia Hinds have gained selection in a 26-member team to represent Barbados at the CARIFTA Games in The Bahamas over the Easter holidays from March 31 to April 2.
The 14-year-old Blackman won the pentathlon at the Barbados Secondary Schools Athletics Championships (BSSAC) last week. She is also a promising hurdler with a season’s best 14.60 in the 100-sprint hurdles, while she clocked 45.35 seconds in the 300 hurdles while finishing second to Christ Church Foundation’s Sarah Belle.
The petite Greaves has been fairly close to the 37-metre benchmark for the Under-17 Girls’ javelin on a few occasions, while Hinds cleared 1.60 metres, just short of the 1.65 requirement for Under-17 Girls in the high jump during the Esther Maynard Zone.
The other Under-17 girls selected are hurdler Belle, long jumper Dominique Wood and throwers Shanice Hutson and Rowland Kirton-Browne.
St Michael’s sprinter Ashlee Lowe and hurdler and quarter-miler Rhea Hoyte, who have been steadily improving all season while coming close to qualifying, are the only two Under-20 girls selected while there are 14 Under-20 boys.
Lowe won the Under-20 Girls’ 200 at BSSAC in 24.14 seconds, just shy of 24 seconds required when she beat Hannah Connell, who has been surprisingly omitted, despite coming extremely close to the 14-second standard with a season’s best 14.28 seconds in the 100-metre hurdles at the National Junior Championships.
Hoyte came within a whisker of the 61.00 qualifying mark when she won the Under-20 Girls’ 400 metres hurdles at BSSAC in 61.75 seconds. She clocked 56.83 and 56.74, just shy of the 56 seconds required in the flat 400 at the National Juniors and BSSAC respectively.
Foundation’s lanky six-footer Nathan Crawford-Wallis and St Michael’s multi-eventer Seth Edwards have been rewarded after hit the qualifying mark at BSSAC but Lester Vaughan’s Vivica Addison and Jaden Callender and The Lodge School’s Dejuan Walcott can consider themselves unlucky.
Crawford-Wallis leapt beyond the qualifying distance of 6.75 metres in winning the long jump at BSSAC and also won the Under-17 Boys’ high jump with a leap of 1.89, just outside the 1.95 benchmark. He joined quarter-miler Kyle Gale and sprinter Darian Clarke, who did the sprint double at BSSAC but failed to go under the qualifying standard with times of 10.97 and 22.56 in the 100 and 200 respectively, as the only three Under-17 boys.
Edwards, who won the heptathlon, is likely to contest the Octathlon and the shot put after eclipsing the standard of 15.50, putting the shot 15.80 and 16.32 metres.
Addison actually hurled the javelin 39.69 metres while also beating Greaves in the Under-17 girls event at BSSAC while Walcott, with an allowable 2.0 wind-reading, surpassed the qualifying standard of 14 metres for the Under-17 Boys’ triple jump with a distance of 14.37 metres.
Callender clocked 55.41 seconds in the Under-17 Boys’ 400 hurdles to dip under the qualifying requirement of 55.50 seconds.
Once again middle and distance runner and former Austin Sealy Trophy winner Mary Fraser, who missed the National Championships but was victrix ludorum at BSSAC when she won the 800, 1500 and 3 000, was bypassed for selection.
United States-based quarter-miler Tiana Bowen is unavailable for her swansong as her junior college also has a meet the same weekend as CARIFTA. Bowen won a silver medal in the 400 metres and a bronze in the 400 metres hurdles at last year’s Games in Curacao. (EZS)
SQUAD:
Under-17 girls: Sarah Belle, Anika Blackman, Vanessa Greaves, Tia Hinds, Shanice Hutson, Rowland Kirton-Browne, Dominique Wood.
Under-20 girls: Rhea Hoyte, Ashlee Lowe
Under-17 boys: Darian Clarke, Nathan Crawford-Wallis, Kyle Gale
Under-20 boys: Tafari Bishop, Jaden Broome, Matthew Clarke, Seth Edwards, Nathan Fergusson, Triston Gibbons, Anderson Greaves, Kuron Griffith, Rasheeme Griffith, Zion Hill, Antoni Hoyte-Small, Jonathan Jones, Jonathan Miller, Ronaldo Rock.
OFFICIALS: Angela Jackson (manager), Alwyn Babb (head coach), Desiree Crichlow, Ramon Armstrong, Jamal Grosvenor (assistant coaches)
