BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – AFTER laying out some of the most stringent Carifta Games qualifying standards in recent history, the St. Kitts-Nevis Amateur Athletics Association (SKNAAA) has announced that seven of the nation’s athletes will be traveling to the April 2-5 event in the Cayman Islands.
“We are looking for A qualifiers,” SKNAAA Vice-President Lester Hanley said in a February press conference when asked about selection for this year’s Carifta team.
“In previous years we would have had an A-standard and a B-standard, and we would have tried to take as many people as possible from the Federation. One would have to realize now with the challenging [economic] times that taking a team sized 20-40 persons to the Cayman Islands, where we would possibly have to go through the United States, is an expensive proposition for the association.”
Though they did not all reach the A-qualifying mark demanded by the association, Adrian Williams, Lonzo Wilkinson Jr., Dion Samuel, Jason Rogers, Kadeem Smith, Tesril Nisbett and Trefessana Whyte have all performed well and were chosen as this year’s delegation.
The SKNAAA also confirmed that the athletes will be accompanied by Maritza Dias as Team Leader and Craig Connor as Head Coach.
The Nevisians on the team, Williams and Nisbett, are poised to do very well in the U-17 Boys and U-20 Girls Javelin categories, respectively.
While Williams is a fresh face on the athletics scene this year, he has greatly impressed the nation with throws that have consistently surpassed the 53.59m mark that won Trinidad & Tobago a gold in the U-17 Boys category last year. Nisbett on the other hand is more experienced in the sport and will be looking to improve on her bronze medal from last year’s games.
St. Kitts’ contribution to the field events comes in the form of Wilkinson and Samuel, who will be participating in the U-17 and U-20 Boys Shot Put, respectively. The young men have consistently challenged each other throughout the year at various competitions and development meets, and stand a chance of giving the Federation one of its best performances to date in what has traditionally been a challenging discipline.
Carifta veterans Whyte and Smith will represent the Federation in the middle distances via the U-20 Girls 400m and U-20 Boys 800m and will likely be called upon as leaders for the team. Much like Nisbett, Smith was a bronze medalist in his event at the 2009 games and is expected to make the most of his selection in 2010.
The final member of the team, Rogers, will be the Federation’s sole entrant into the sprints as he runs in the U-20 Boys 100m, a departure from past Carifta teams that have focused heavily on the sprint categories.
Though some have questioned the Commonwealth Youth Games bronze medalist’s dedication to the sport this season, Rogers ran a respectable time of 10.68sec last weekend at the TDC/Coca-Cola/LIME Interschool Championships in an exhibition against top senior athletes such as Kim Collins and Delwayne Delaney.
This year’s Carifta team is one of the smallest sent in recent years, but the SKNAAA has placed great hope in the talent-packed team to return home with a substantial medal haul.
