Wednesday, July 15, 2009

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BAAA names large CAC team By KELSIE JOHNSON ~ NG Sports Reporter ~ kelsie@nasguard.com: A 29-member team was ratified by the Bahamas Association of Athletic Associations (BAAA) yesterday, to compete in the Senior Central American and Caribbean Track and Field Championships (CAC). Selection was based on the performances at this year's BAAA National Championships, which were held over the weekend at the Thomas A. Robinson Stadium. Although the team has only three days to work together, Head Coach for the squad Rupert Gardiner is optimistic that they will rise above the challenge, rating the team at a nine-and-a-half out of 10. The CAC Championships are set to start on Friday, July 3 in Cuba. The team will leave for competition on Wednesday. "I am very pleased with the selection of the team," Gardiner said. "The athletes, they came out and they performed, they did their best to make the standards so that pleased me as head coach. The team is a very good team. In my opinion, if I was to rate this team on a scale from one to 10, 10 being the best, I would give this team a nine-and-a-half leaving a little room for error." Opting to skip the championships were national record holders Chandra Sturrup, Debbie Ferguson-McKenzie and Chris Brown, and female quarter-miler Christine Amertil. The quartet will return to the international circuit. National record holder in the 100m for men, Derrick Atkins, will not compete in any individual races giving sprinters Adrian Griffith and Rodney Green opportunities to qualify in the 100 meters (m) for the International Association of Athletic Federations (IAAF) World Championships. Those World Championships are set for August 15-23, in Berlin, Germany. Atkins will run on the men's 4x100m team in Cuba. The men's 4x100m team is the only Bahamian relay team that has not qualified for the IAAF World Championships. Both the women's 4x100m and 4x400m squads and the men's 4x400m team have already qualified. Gardiner said: "It will not be difficult putting the relay teams together because three relay teams have already qualified in the early part of the year, but we still need to get them working together again as we head into the World Championships. The men 4x100m team, we are really looking for that team to qualify down there in Cuba. That is one team we are really going to concentrate on down there in Cuba. When you look at the men's 4x400m team, you have Andretti, Latoy Williams, Avard Moncur, Ramon Miller.... this is a young team but they are experienced so we know they are going to do well. The women's 4x100m team, we have a good selection with Sheniqua and Jernise Saunders, Timicka and Krystal. We have a lot of options when it comes to the relay teams. We are pleased with the selection and are ready." The men's 4x100m team will need to run 39.10 seconds if it wants to qualify for the World Championships. So far on the year, the men's team has clocked a season's best time of 39.77 seconds. Monday, June 29, 2009