It’s costing almost $80 000 to take the Barbados team to the CARIFTA Games.
This was revealed by vice-president of the Athletics Association of Barbados, Noel Lynch, on Tuesday, during a presentation to athletes by ICBL ahead of this weekend’s Easter games at the National Stadium in Nassau, Bahamas.
“We carry 31 people – 26 athletes and five officials – and that in itself is a costly exercise. It is costing us just shy of $80 000,” he said.
He told NATION SPORT and sister company Starcom Network that he was pleased that ICBL had come on board to assist with expenses.
“In this economic environment it is very difficult to find sponsors to get this team to the CARIFTA Games and every year is a struggle. It is in The Bahamas this year and every time we go to The Bahamas it takes a lot more money to get the team there,” he said.
Contribution
Senior vice-president of ICBL, Henry Inniss, said although the company was unable to sponsor every member of the team it was happy to make a contribution to cover the costs of some.
“We have been associated with the CARIFTA team for quite a few years now. One of the biggest travesties is if you have a person who qualifies and then because of a lack of financial support that person is not able to go to the games,” Inniss said. “It is very important for us to make a contribution. We can sponsor a few of the athletes and we are very happy to do that.”
Head coach Alwyn Babb said he was certain there would be some exceptional performances at the Games.
“I am pleased with the overall fitness of the CARIFTA team. With just one more day left of practice [Wednesday], I think the team, unlike previous years, are carrying a high level of fitness. What we want is that fitness to translate into enough medals that we can make the country of Barbados proud.
“Yes, we have some outstanding performances and we expect as usual to do our medal takings in the hurdles, especially the 400 hurdles. We expect a medal from Jonathan Jones and we are expecting some of the throwers to come up very handy in terms of medals,” he said.
“I am not going to give an overall count, but I am expecting some good performances that should make us proud as a nation.”
First-timers
Babb explained that, as normal, first-timers may be a bit nervous since they were going into a level of competition they were not accustomed to, but the management team have been working to get them as comfortable and confident as possible. (RG)
