… Qualification set for April

THE date has been set for the 49th edition of CARIFTA GAMES, which was postponed in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. North American, Central American and Caribbean Athletic Association (NACAC) recently confirmed that the games will take place from July 2 to 4 of this year in Bermuda.

This will be Bermuda’s third opportunity to host the prestigious event after their initial run in 1975 and the second in 1980.
Following the provisional postponement which was the first in the tournament’s history, the organising committee made the decision last April to reschedule the Games for April 2-5 of this year. However, there were several concerns by the nations involved that the new date might present some challenges.

The concerns of the nations were enough to rule out the April time frame which is why the majority decided on July when most of the athletes would have been done with academic engagements.

President of NACAC, Mike Sands, said: “We took a decision at council level to do a survey with membership to determine the best course of action. There were several options for a date change, and we ultimately decided on July 2 to 4.”
More than 600 athletes and officials from 27 Caribbean islands will arrive in Bermuda for the Games, one of the most popular junior athletics events in the region. The pandemic has also caused numerous athletes from around the region to miss out on their final year for competing at the games.

This means a new qualifying deadline will be set for three weeks before the Games for those who still have not reached qualifying standards or athletes who are to be replaced because of a breach in age. However, athletes who qualified for the 2020 Games will not have to qualify again in the same age group.

Meanwhile, Bermuda currently has less than 100 active cases of COVID-19 and only 12 recorded deaths in the nation of just over 60 000 people. That means during the pandemic it’s almost inevitability that all incoming guests to Bermuda would have to take a COVID-19 RT-PCR test and receive a negative result.

Guyana still hold hosting rights
Once the hosting of the 49th edition of the games is successful during this pandemic, it will be most certain that NACAC will be forging ahead with preparations for the hosting of the 50th CARIFTA GAMES which is billed for Guyana.

In January 2020 before the pandemic caused disruption in the sporting arena, NACAC president Sands visited Guyana for the first time and made an official visit to the National Track & Field Centre at Leonora.

The visit was mainly to assess Guyana’s progress and capability of hosting a Track & Field meet of this magnitude that will see projected amounts of almost 800 athletes & technical delegates. Fans were still allowed in venues at this time.

Sands, along with his General Secretary Keith Joseph, agreed that although there is some work to be done at the venue (Leonora), it has a lot of space and the potential of the facility is immense, not only for the 2022 CARIFTA Games, but for future meets.

The Athletics Association of Guyana (AAG) has already been awarded the hosting rights, President of AAG, Aubrey Hutson. and his team were scheduled to make a final presentation of what they have in store for the 50th CARIFTA Games after the completion of the 49th games.