By Neto Baptiste
Corporate citizens Cool & Smooth have once again stepped forward to assist a number of the country’s sportsmen and women, pledging EC$1,000 worth of gear to all track and field athletes selected as part of the country’s team to the 2023 NACAC Under-23 and Under-18 Championships scheduled for July 21-23 in North America.
Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Cool & Smooth, Amer Hourani, made the announcement during the presentation ceremony following Sunday’s day two of the National Track & Field Championships at the YASCO Sports Complex.
Meet coordinator and a member of the Antigua and Barbuda Athletics Association (ABAA) Kesswin Daley welcomed the announcement.
“We have to thank Amer again for extending that courtesy to us. He actually did it on the spot once he found out we had a number of athletes who qualified for that meet so we’d like to thank him for that. Its $1,000 of gear sponsorship to all the athletes who have qualified for the NACAC under-18 and Under-23,” he said.
The athletics association is slated to name a team for the NACAC squad later this week following the conclusion of the National Track & Field Championships held over the weekend.
Anthony said there were a number of positives coming out of the recent nationals from an organisers standpoint.
“It was one of the smoothest run meets I think we’ve ever had for some time now in terms of the races going off on time or just around the time it was scheduled to go off. There was no delay to speak of, like we usually have where the timing system was concerned, except for one incident on the first night. Other than that, it was a pretty smooth sailing meet and the standard that we built over these last two days, we intend to keep that going forward,” the official said.
Moving forward, however, Anthony said improvements must be made in some areas.
“A bit more organising could have been done and a bit more promotion could have been done. We only started to get on the ground like a month to five weeks out from the meet, so I think if we tighten up on that aspect of it in terms of the promotion we’ll get more people to turn out.
“We had a pretty good turnout on the Saturday but the Sunday wasn’t as good but if we have over 300 athletes registered and each one of their parents comes to support them, then we’d have a packed venue. I had instances where parents dropped their athletes [children] off to compete and go to watch another sport,” he said.
The North America, Central America and Caribbean Athletic (NACAC) Games is slated to take place in San Jose, Costa Rica.
