SHELDON LONGLEY, NG Sports Editor, slongley@nasguard.com

With Sheniqua Ferguson and Nivea Smith leading the way, the future looks extremely bright for The Bahamas, as far as a return of the 'Golden Girls' era is concerned, but not even that young exceptional talent along with veterans Debbie Ferguson-McKenzie and Chandra Sturrup might be enough to get a Bahamian women's sprint relay squad to Beijing.

Ferguson-McKenzie along with Sturrup, Timicka Clarke and Jackie Edwards ran a dismal 44.52 seconds for fifth place at the Penn Relays in Philadelphia over the weekend - certainly not good enough to get a women's sprint relay squad in Beijing to compete at the XXIX Olympiad this summer. As a matter of fact, the junior team at the Carifta Championships in St. Kitts posted a faster time this year (44.36 seconds). Not only is the time this weekend significantly off Beijing qualifying pace, but there are limited IAAF meets remaining, and The Bahamas still needs to post two times in the top 16 among nations in the world. The junior team of Ferguson, Smith, Krystal Bodie and Cache Armbrister are holding onto the fourth fastest time by nations this year, but numerous nations have ran faster last year, and the qualifying period stretches from January 1, 2007 to July 23, 2008.

Ferguson-McKenzie has proven that she is in top form with an 11.15 posting in the open century in her first race of the season, but Sturrup is coming off consecutive years in which she battled through her mother's death and a right collarbone injury. Against all odds, she still showed flashes of brilliance at the Pan Am Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, last year, like all Bahamians know she is quite capable of doing. However, it is still unknown what Sturrup will give us in, what should be her final Olympic year, and at 36-years-old, quite possibly her final competitive year.

Even so, the 44.52 fifth place finish from the women's sprint relay team over the weekend wasn't expected. Certainly, Edwards has little or no experience with relay running, especially at that level, but a team of former Golden Girls Ferguson-McKenzie and Sturrup, along with Timicka Clarke brought promise of a high 42 or a low 43.

By now, it should be quite evident to the BAAA that some sort of marriage between Ferguson-McKenzie, Sturrup, Timicka Clarke and the Carifta record-breaking quartet needs to be ordained in a hurry in order to get our girls to Beijing. Time is undoubtedly not on The Bahamas' side, not to mention just getting all the girls together in one spot for one purpose would be extremely taxing.

I'm projecting a line-up of Ferguson-McKenzie, Sturrup with youngsters Sheniqua Ferguson and Smith. I'll even go as far as to say that Bodie and Clarke should help The Bahamas provide a formidable team. As for veteran Savetheda Fynes, she has done all but announced her retirement, and nothing has been heard from Shandria Brown. These should be the same ladies, however, battling for the 100m crown at the BAAA Senior Nationals, and it would be quite interesting to see how that unfolds.

As for the men's relay squads, what should be a potent and powerful 4x400 team is already assured of a spot in Beijing, but the men's sprint relay squad is also running out of chances. It will surely be a blessing to see the men's 4x400 team atone for an awful blunder at the last Olympics in Athens, Greece four years ago, but the chances of both sprint squads are looking grim, and it will be a shame if they both fail to qualify, seeing that the talent is obviously there.