GUYANA’S 2016 CARIFTA Games silver medallist, Chantoba Bright, is currently Atheltics Association of Guyana (AAG) sole prospect to represent the country at the upcoming International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) U-20 Championships, formerly the World Junior Championships, set for Bydgoszcz, Poland, July 19 – 24.President of the AAG, Aubrey Hutson, speaking with Chronicle Sport, explained that after Aaliyah Abrams, Guyana’s only athlete confirmed to have qualified for an event at the Championships, indicated that she would not be representing Guyana at the meet, the AAG then submitted Bright’s name to the IAAF and they accepted.
Abrams opted out of the Championships due to her preparations for next month’s Olympic Games, where she will be one of four athletes who will represent Guyana in athletics.
he selection, Hutson explained, was made based on Bright’s performance at the 2016 CARIFTA Games, where she earned two silver medals in the Girls’ Under-18 triple and long jumps. Hutson admitted that the Association did look at the other Guyanese athletes who medalled at the Games but was not pleased with the other athletes’ subsequent performances.
“Her (Chantoba) name is submitted, we would have submitted (Aaliyah) but due to (her) involvement in preparation for Rio, (she) opted not to go. Though Chantoba would not have made the qualifying standard, we think that her performance at CARIFTA is good enough, so we submitted it to the IAAF and they accepted it.
“We basically use CARIFTA as a yardstick and see who would have given us good performance. The only other medallists we had at CARIFTA were Andrea Foster and Natricia Hooper, who is not at the top of her game right now, based on her last two performances at our National Seniors and the Aliann Pompey (Invitational). We went with Chantoba because she is one of our best prospects.”
The IAAF agreed that the Association could be awarded the space for unqualified athletes only after being sufficiently satisfied that Abrams would not be attending the Championships, since no country is allowed to enter an unqualified athlete in the Championship if it has at least one qualified athlete.
“The IAAF doesn’t accept non-qualifiers when you have qualifiers so it was not until Aaliyah Abrams was not able to go that they were prepared to accept Chantoba’s entry.
It’s not a case that we waited long to start the proceeding, you have to bear in mind that Chantoba did not qualify for this meet. So her acceptance is based on the IAAF accepting her, and that acceptance basically came through pretty late.”
Subsequently the AAG is now in the process of procuring the necessary visas for Bright and her coach, Johnny Gravesande, to travel to Poland later this month, with only a few technicalities remaining to be worked out.
“We’re trying to get her there, she and her coach, Mr Johnny Gravesande; we’re working on it. We’re working tediously, around the clock in order to get her the Schengen visa, and then to organise flights, more or less likely through Suriname to get her up there at least by the 16th for competition on the 19th (of July). She would get the visa, we’re just looking at the timing of it.
The whole issue right now is ideally the Polish Embassy that we’re supposed to be working through is in Venezuela, but we’re looking at the possibility of having her get her visa out of Suriname but that’s not out of the Polish Embassy, so we will have to pay for that visa. If we had gone to the Polish Embassy we would have gotten that visa free of cost.”
Overall, Hutson said, the funds are there to get the two-man team to Poland, with the Association paying now and being reimbursed by the IAAF later.
“We have enough funds to cover her ticket, while the IAAF will refund those moneys we would have put out towards getting her there. There is also a coaches’ seminar that the IAAF would normally fund for the coach going with the athlete. Therefore we’re hoping that the IAAF would give us the refund too for Mr Gravesande’s ticket.” Hutsson said.
It remains tentative if Bright would participate in both the triple and long jump events, or just one of those events at the Championships.
“They entered her for both (long jump and triple jump) but it’s up to the technical delegate of the meet to say based on the amount of slots if they would put her in both.”
Bright landed her silver medals at CARIFTA after clearing 5.94m in the long jump, and 12.39m in the triple jump. The Lindener again impressed when she cleared a 6.09m personal best in the long jump at the AAG National Seniors Championships.
The qualifying marks for the long jump and triple jump at the Championships are 6.20m and 13.0m, respectively.