One of the difficult challenges in track and field is for a country to put together a national relay team, a team that gets to the start line and gets the baton to the finish line.
The IAAF (The International Association of Athletic Federations) found it proper to introduce to its calendar for the first time the World Relays over the past weekend and designated a small country in the Caribbean, the Bahamas, as its first host. Right on the heels of the famous Penn Relays Carnival, teams from each of the 215 IAAF affiliated countries were invited to compete. Not unlike any other country, the Virgin Islands met its own set of challenges leading up to Nassau, meaning that it faced limits on the pool of qualified athletes to field full relay teams.
The V.I. won its only international championships medal, a bronze, in the Pan American Games 4 x 100m relay in Havana, Cuba, in 1991 where the team of Jimmy Fleming, Keith Smith, Derry Pemberton, Neville Hodge and Kevin Robinson got the nod over a U.S.A. team in Havana, which dropped the baton. The V.I. has only competed twice in the relay: the men’s 4x100m relay in the Olympics (1992 in the Barcelona Olympics) and the women’s 4x100m relay in the Olympics (1996 in Atlanta). It has only competed a few times internationally in a relay event.
The V.I. National Team of Tabarie Henry, David Walters, Leon Hunt, Leslie Murray and Calvin Dascent gave it their best shot at the first attempt at the distance and set a national record and made history by joining 16 countries in the 4 x 200m relay and some 40 IAAF countries in this new competition.
The V.I. team in Nassau consisted of short sprinter David Walters, long jumper Leon Hunt, long sprinters Tabarie Henry and Calvin Dascent, and hurdler Leslie Murray. With its national record the team finished behind Jamaica which set a new world record in the event. The team finished sixth in its heat with a time of 1:25.01.
There are several reasons why even nations cannot get national relay teams to the start line. China with a billion people has difficulty finding four runners who can compete at the world class level. The Virgin Islands, which has a population of 100,000, hung with China in the Bahamas in the rarely staged event in the prelim, and it finished just ahead of another small country, the Cayman Islands. The team set the V.I. standard for future teams.
The territory will have a rare opportunity to see Virgin Islands National Track and Field Team (VINTFT) members at the Twilight Invitational Meet in Tortola on June 7. Competing will be: Laverne Jones-Ferrette, Allison Peter, Wanetta Kirby, Ninfa Barnard, Tabarie Henry, Leon Hunt and David Walters.
The V.I. National Relay Team and several of the athletes competing in the British Virgin Islands (BVI) is funded by the Virgin Islands Olympic Committee in effort to develop the V.I. CAC Games Team to compete in Veracruz, Mexico, in November.
For information, contact the Virgin Islands Track and Field Federation (VITFF) at http://virginislandstrackandfield.org , e-mail: [email protected] or call 643-2557.