By TENAJH SWEETING 

Tribune Sports Reporter 

tsweeting@tribunemedia.net

THE Olympic fever has died down since the culmination of the 33rd Olympiad in Paris, France last Sunday. The focus now shifts to the next Olympic cycle where all roads lead to Los Angeles, California for the 2028 Summer Olympics.

The Bahamas may have ended the Paris trip with zero Olympic medals for the first time in 36 years, but debate has started over whether sailing can return to the forefront at the international multi-sports event.

Lori Lowe, president of the Bahamas Sailing Association (BSA), provided some food for thought on the latest topic. “We need to identify the talent. We do have some talent out there but then the talent has to want to put the time and effort in and we need the funding. The beauty of sailing is everywhere you go is a different venue and the detriment of sailing is also everywhere you go is a different venue.

“To functionally train as a sailor you need to travel to a lot of events in different places and it is very expensive.

“In the last 20 years, we had a couple of kids that could’ve got there but for some of them there wasn’t any money.

“You have to almost abandon your education for sailing and collegiate sailing is not the same as Olympic sailing,” she said.

Over 300 sailors (men and women) hit the waters in Paris, France with a number of them hailing from Caribbean countries such as Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Puerto Rico and St Lucia.

The Bahamas is still treading water in a bid to secure its first Olympic berth in sailing since the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia.

Despite the Olympic drought as of late, The Bahamas has a rich Olympic history as it relates to the national sport.

Sir Durward Knowles along with Sloane Farrington won the country’s first ever Olympic medal at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics in the star class.

He improved on his bronze-medal finish and sailed away with gold at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics in the same class.

According to Lowe, times have changed and the sport has shifted to a degree since those days. “When Sir Durward was racing there were two clubs in the country and there was no functional year round coaching. Sir Durward was a great sailor and he didn’t have a coach because they didn’t exist in those days.

“Now we have seven clubs in the country with four or five of them with coaches that coach full-time.

“It is difficult to have them coaching full-time and some of our clubs do not have the money to even have a coach. We are fortunate that at the moment we have three high quality coaches in the country in different classes.

“In his era, sailing was an open sport. It was pretty much done by a limited group of people and they were not professionals. In sailing today, in order to make it to the Olympics you have to effectively train everyday just like any other sport.

“The world has changed in the last 40 years. Back then, you could be a relative amateur with a full-time job and still go to the Olympics in a lot of sports.

“I do not think that is possible today, certainly not in sailing.

“Most of the people who are in sailing are training full-time five days a week and eight hours a day. It is a full-time job and we need to be supported,” she said.

Although Bahamian sailors have not made an appearance at the Olympic

Games in quite some time, there have been some that have tried to get there, including the likes of Paul De Souza, Cochise Burrows, Spencer Cartwight and Joshua Higgins in the last few years.

Lowe expressed that despite some of the obstacles that now exist in sailing, she thinks that “we can get there.”

And she plans to put the sailors in the best position to attain Olympic qualification for LA 2028.

“I am working on getting at least four to six of our sailors to the CAC Games. If they get to the CAC, they might qualify for the Pan-Ams.

“If they qualify for the Pan-Ams they might finish well enough to qualify for the Olympics,” according to the BSA president.