After a near month-long debacle about several Jamaican athletes not receiving their medals at the 2018 Caribbean Free Trade Agreement (CARIFTA) Track and Field Championships in New Providence, Bahamas Association of Athletics Associations (BAAA) President Rosamunde Carey flew to Jamaica yesterday to personally deliver the medals to the Jamaican Athletics Administrative Association (JAAA).
Carey, who also served as CARIFTA Local Organizing Committee (LOC) CEO said, she and the members of the BAAA found that the lessons learned from the embarrassing experience proved to be of great worth.
“The CARIFTA organising committee sought not to only raise the bar in the execution of the games, but equally important to recognise, affirm and award these amazing talented young athletes from Jamaica, who worked exceedingly hard to be winners,” Carey said to the Jamaican Observer.
“We thought it was not only fitting that we not be callous or casual in correcting our error, but we should honour them in person and to recognise that the best way to do that is to come in person and to apologise and present the medals to the athletes and the Jamaican federation.”
JAAA President Dr. Warren Blake commended Carey for traveling to Jamaica and delivering the medals.
“When we last participated in the CARIFTA in The Bahamas, there was really an unfortunate happening where not all members of the teams managed to get their medals because of some administrative foul-up,” Dr. Blake noted.
“The Bahamas was really very sorry and they expressed their regret. In setting this right, what normally happens when medals were not presented, it is easier to put them in the mail and send them over. But the Bahamians were ready to show their regret and, in the spirit of friendship, they decided that the best thing to do was to bring the medals themselves to hand them over to the Jamaican athletes themselves.”
Along with Carey, Pauline Davis-Thompson, representing the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) and North American, Central American and Caribbean Athletic Association (NACAC), made the trip to Jamaica.
