media_artricles :: 2012

‘Hot Hot Hot’ Carifta

Cedenio, London in Day One medal hunt

On arrival at the L.F. Wade International Airport, here in Bermuda, on Thursday, the 45 athletes who will represent Trinidad and Tobago at the 2012 Carifta Games were treated to a local rendition of the late Arrow's "Hot Hot Hot".

The three elderly musicians were not referring to the weather.

Located in the North Atlantic Ocean, Bermuda is not far from North Carolina, in the United States, and currently experiencing spring weather.

Most of the young athletes on the T&T team have never competed in the "Cool Cool Cool" conditions on offer here in Hamilton, Bermuda. But jumps coach Wendell Williams expects them to cope well with the change.

"It's a little difficult, especially for the first time. You have to train your mind and adapt to it as fast as possible. Your warm-up would be a little different, a little longer, and lots of stretching is advised.

"It's very important," the jumps coach continued, "that the athletes wear the proper sweats in order to keep in the body heat."

Williams knows what it's like to compete in cold conditions. For more than seven years, the soldier was based in Germany. In fact, he set the national men's long jump record of 8.14 metres at a meet in Germany in 1999.

The Carifta athletes would be well advised to listen attentively to the likes of Williams and 1964 Olympic mile relay bronze medallist, Edwin Skinner, a sprint and hurdles coach attached to Team T&T.

"Once they listen to the advice of the coaches and do the proper warm-up and stretches," Williams told the Express, "everything would be alright."

At the 2011 Carifta Games in Montego Bay, Jamaica, T&T captured seven gold medals, 13 silver and nine bronze to finish fourth, behind perennial champions Jamaica, Bahamas and Barbados.

Williams said a top-three finish is the target for 2012.

"We are going to have a good medal haul, once everything works according to plan. We are going to come, at least, in the first three."

With the opening ceremony staged late yesterday at the National Stadium, here in Hamilton, Bermuda, attention now shifts to competition on the track and in the field, starting at eight a.m. today (TT time) and concluding on Monday.

Among the hot medal prospects for T&T on day one of the regional junior championships are Machel Cedenio (boys' under-20 400 metres), Nicholas Douglas (boys' under-17 100m), Kernesha Spann (girls' under-20 400m) and Kenejah Williams (boys' under-17 shot put), as well as Mark London and Nicholas Landeau, who will bid for honours in the boys' under-20 1500m event.

But the hottest T&T item of all at Carifta 2012 is undoubtedly Keshorn Walcott. On Monday, the 19-year-old Toco thrower will bid for a hat-trick of boys' under-20 javelin titles.

Based on the 77.53 metres Central American and Caribbean (CAC) junior (under-20) record he produced at the Falcon Games, in Trinidad, last Sunday, Walcott looks a safe bet to return home next Tuesday with Carifta gold.

Top