Relay Team Dominates T&T Nationals

Antigua & Barbuda’s 4×1 relay team clocked an impressive 38.86 seconds on Sunday, to capture gold in the finals of the Trinidad & Tobago National Open Championships held at the Hasely Crawford Stadium in Port of Spain.
The team, which comprised Chavaughn Walsh, Daniel Bailey, Jared Jarvis and Cejhae Greene, finished impressively almost a second ahead of the Dominican Republic who were second in 39.54 seconds.
British Virgin Islands claimed bronze with a time of 39.78 while hosts Trinidad & Tobago finished fourth in 40.08 seconds.
President of the Antigua & Barbuda Athletics Association (ABAA), Everton Cornelius, welcomed the good news but said the team will have to replicate or better their time at the recent T&T nationals if they are to be guaranteed a spot at the World Championships in July.
“It’s an average of your two best times and so we have to go out and run 38 seconds again to stay in the 38 bracket. If you take the average of what we ran previously and what we ran now I think you’d get 39-something, and so we would have to go out for this next meet and run 38-something again. Once they get to spend this week down there [Trinidad] and train and work on the baton exchange, we can run faster,” he said.
Greene was also outstanding in the 100 meters event after having run the fastest qualifying time of 10:08 seconds in heat 9. The Antiguan however, did not contest the finals of the event, opting instead, to concentrate on the relay. Greene has already qualified for the World Championships.
Chavaughn Walsh also contested the 100 meters, winning heat 8 in a time of 10:27 seconds. The sprinter however finished fifth in the finals with a time of 10.17 seconds. A previous time of 10:14 has however qualified him for the World Championships.
Tahir Walsh, who contested the 200 meters, did not make the finals of the event.
The team will spend a couple of days in Trinidad before flying into Grenada for the OECS Championships slated for July 1-2.
Cornelius said a number of other athletes could join the team in Grenada.
“The OECS event, it is the total responsibility of the NOC so all of the NOCs throughout our region are responsible for getting athletes to the OECS; so we are looking at about four [additional athletes] if possible. I am looking at the athletes who are going to World Youth Championships and Commonwealth youths,” he said.
“Because of the OECS, it’s only two athletes per event and we are kind of stocked up in the sprint area already so I don’t know how we are going to work that out but maybe some of the guys will just run the relay,” he added.
Abigale Dyett (sprinter), Sheldon Noble (long jump), Taeco O’Garro (long jump), Richard Richardson (long distance), and Kalique St Jean (long distance) could join Antigua & Barbuda’s efforts in Grenada.