BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – A majority of the athletes and staff who traveled to the Cayman Islands for the 39th Carifta Games returned to St. Kitts-Nevis this morning (Apr. 7) and were welcomed with a brief ceremony at the Robert L. Bradshaw International Airport.
Having won a gold and silver medal, the Federation finished in seventh place out of 25 participating countries at the games and was one of the top Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States at the event.
“We are pretty much satisfied with the gold and silver, especially having come seventh place overall,” St. Kitts-Nevis Amateur Athletics Association (SKNAAA) Public Relations Officer Evris Huggins said.
“If my memory serves me correctly, this is probably the highest we have ever ranked at the Carifta Games and to rank seventh out of 25 countries I think is very good. We were definitely hoping to get some other medals…but nonetheless we are very satisfied and I think all of the athletes represented us very well.”
When asked about winning a gold medal in the Boys U-17 Javelin in his first ever Carifta appearance, Adrian Williams said that it was both a challenging and very rewarding experience.
“Well it was frightening in some ways, but we just went out there and tried our best and we placed [seventh]. The competition was tight [in the Javelin], too tight in fact, but I overcame my fear.”
Williams edged out Barbados’ Janiel Craigg on his second best throw after both young men threw a top distance of 57.86m in the event, thus earning him the Federation’s first Carifta gold medal since 2003.
Meanwhile, silver medalist in the Men’s U-20 100m Jason Rogers said that he was “satisfied” with his performance in his final Carifta Games.
SKNAAA President Glenville Jeffers was among the officials that welcomed back the team, which also included Team Manager Maritza Dias, Trefasana Whyte, Kadeem Smith and Dion Samuel, and he said that the association and nation at large had a great deal to be proud of because of the team.
“I just want to congratulate the whole team on a wonderful performance over the Easter weekend and I know we will be looking for more greatness from most of these guys.
“We have been focused a lot on the track and have sometimes ignored the field events, and to get our first gold medal in the field events is magnificent and quite an achievement by Adrian. We saw [Rogers’] performance at Pan Am Juniors last year and with just a little more tweaking he probably would have gotten the gold. He has shown that he has that talent and he gave us all something to cheer about when we were at home watching it,” Jeffers said.
Tesril Nisbett, Lonzo Wilkinson Jr. and Head Coach Craig Connor, who comprise the remainder of the team, are slated to return this afternoon at 2 p.m. and will come bearing the Carifta Flag, a symbol some have speculated to mean that St. Kitts-Nevis is once again in the running as a potential host nation for 2011.
In terms of the nation’s athletes, Huggins assured that Carifta was only the beginning of this year’s competitions and the association would continue to prepare the young men and women for the many premier events this summer.
“The training programme will continue through the weekly development meets and there are still some other major competitions coming up. We have the CAC Junior Championships, the [national] senior Championships and the World Junior Championships.
“So, with the development meets, we will continue to develop our young team and our senior programmes while we look forward to greater things in track and field,” he said.
