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Editorial
Newsday
4 Hrs Ago
(L-R) TT Special Olympic athletes La Toya Charles (2nd place), Tershana Tempro (1st place) and Melissa Nanan (3rd) celebrate on the podium after competing in the girls’ 200m dash Special Olympics Open, during the 52nd Carifta Games, at the Hasely Crawford Stadium, Port of Spain. – Photo by Rondell Paul
The first Carifta Games was convened in Barbados immediately proving itself a benchmark for athletes hoping to advance to international sport.
Laura Pierre was part of the 1972 team that represented Trinidad and Tobago at the first games, and she would go on to become the first woman to represent this country at the Olympics, competing in the 200 metres at the summer games later that year. She was just 16 years old.
Many of TT’s medalling athletes at the 2025 games were the same age or close to it.
Oshea Cummings and Christopher Sammy won gold in the boys and girls under-17 1,500m events respectively. Christopher Sammy also won the boys under-17 3,000m race.
Omari Brown took gold in the boy’s under-17 decathlon. Brion Scott led the boys under-17 800m race.
Twins Tenique and Tyrique Vincent won gold in the girls and boys under-20 decathlon.
The 78-member Carifta team ended their 2025 effort with 25 gold, 17 silver and 17 bronze medals, finishing second among competing nations overall.
Breakout aquatic star Liam Carrington gathered eight gold medals in 15-17 individual events and shared in the four relay team gold medals.
Zuri Ferguson won gold in the 50m, 100m and 200m backstroke events while Zachary Anthony emerged a gold medallist at Chaguaramas after winning the male 16-18 5K open water swim. Liam Carrington and Zuri Ferguson broke Carifta records with their performances last week.
It’s tempting to compare medal tallies as an indicator of athletic quality, or to compare where the country ranked relative to other Caribbean islands.
For many of this country’s most distinguished athletes, the road to success was lonely, difficult and discouraging.
Efforts at recognising the intensive reality of world-class athletic training have begun to filter into the planning and support structures of local governance bodies, but TT is still far from the kind of focused effort at grooming local talent that has brought Jamaica consistent success.
On April 24, Anthony Commissiong, chairman of the Southern Games, announced that the games, a landmark event on the national athletics agenda, would be cancelled for 2025. The games were on necessary hiatus for four years during the pandemic, returned in 2024 and appears to be on shaky ground as a rallying point for local athletic excellence.
TT’s head coach for the home team, Wendell Williams, described the Carifta Games as a developmental games, but in a very high-level developmental environment.
TT is fortunate enough to have several excellent stadia, but maintaining those venues and ensuring that they are consistently available to athletes continue to be a challenge.
TT has the athletes, the coaches and the facilities to improve its athletic standing, but these assets must be managed with intent to achieve greater success.
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