By Neto Baptiste
The Antigua and Barbuda Athletics Association (ABAA) will go to the polls before the end of 2021.
This is according to president, Everton Cornelius, who revealed that the body could host its electoral congress between August and September.
“I guess we will get all those things in place and in time for when we are going to have our elections. I think people see the seriousness of what we are doing now and they understand what we have in place at YASCO, so I am looking at hopefully August or September once we have the track out of the way and the Covid situation taken care of. We already wrote to World Athletics [formerly IAAF] because there were some questions asked and I told them yes, we will probably be set to have all these things in place by that particular time,” he said.
Elections were constitutionally due in the first quarter of 2020 but, at the time, Cornelius refused to call the vote, stating that a majority of the association’s members were not in good standings.
However, according to the former athlete, the process has started with clubs already informed of the association’s intent to have the elections following the Tokyo Olympics slated for July 23 to August 8.
“I’ve started sending out correspondents to all members and clubs because I have to make sure that whatever I send out, I forward to them also so they could stay abreast of whatever is going on. To try and have an election before the Olympics will be pushing it because coming from where we are with the track and everything would be pushing it. Some things we need to put in place physically at the track we will need to just concentrate on getting that part of it taken care of more than anything else,” Cornelius said.
Cornelius will be seeking a third term in office when the elections are held.