By TENAJH SWEETING

Tribune Sports Reporter

tsweeting@tribunemedia.net

THE 25-member team representing The Bahamas at the 2024 CARIFTA Triathlon, Aquathlon and Mixed Relay Championships placed seventh overall in the standings with 33 points in Bridgetown, Barbados, over the weekend.

Team Bahamas hauled in three bronze medals in two days of competition despite not having their usual full complement of athletes due to the Goodwill Swimming Championships which happened this weekend as well.

The host country continued to show their dominance in the sport, winning the junior regional meet with a total of 207 points. Bermuda settled for the second spot with 180 points. Trinidad & Tobago was third overall with 58 points.

Cameron Roach, head coach of Team Bahamas, talked about the team’s performance over the weekend.

“We dropped out of the top three this year, but it wasn’t necessarily due to the performances of the athletes. The athletes performed very well. We had one or two illnesses on the trip and some performances by a couple of the athletes weren’t what we were hoping for, but the rest of the team performed very well. Everybody has improved. Everybody looked really good and really sharp out there,” he said.

The coach said numbers played a big role in the team’s finish this time around. 

“The fact that we dropped from number three this year is really a numbers game. What we noticed this year is that countries are now coming with up to 70 athletes on their squad, and it just becomes a numbers game. We have quality athletes. We only fielded 25 athletes compared to some of the bigger teams so unfortunately, we didn’t get all the points that we needed to stay in third place but our athletes performed very well,” he said.

Erin Pritchard brought The Bahamas a bronze medal in the female 16-19  triathlon (750m swim/20km bike/5k run) event for the second straight year. The bronze medallist earned six points after completing the trio of events with a time of 1:16.19. Barbados’ Isis Gaskin got the win in this event, crossing the line first in 1:10.33. 

Grenada’s Nina James hauled away the silver medal in the female event with a second best time of 1:13.30.

Gaskin and James doubled up on their gold and silver medals in the aquathlon portion of the event while Pritchard finished fifth. She concluded the swim and run in 40:44.04..

Launy Duncombe made the top three in the male 16-19 aquathlon  event. It was a close race between the host nation’s Fynn Armstrong and Luke Mcintyre at the end for the first and second place spots. 

Armstrong ran away with the gold medal in 32:30.49 and Mcintyre took the silver medal with a time of 32:46.00

Duncombe trailed both competitors for third in 34:02.00. He would cap off the triathlon portion of competition in ninth overall.

Malcolm Menzies had a tough time in the male 16-19 aquathlon event for a tenth place result.

Torion Turner made his presence felt in the male 11-12 aquathlon event. He finished the event behind Barbados’ Yele Renwick-Williams and Trinidad and Tobago’s Aiden Nixon.

Renwick-Williams finished the race ahead of the field with a time of 10:59.08. Nixon was close but not close enough, leading to his time of 11:00.56 for silver overall. 

The Bahamian bronze medallist was right in the fold, crossing the line at 11:01.31 to hold off his teammate Blair Thompson who came behind in 11:01.33.

Turner did not fare as well in the triathlon. He ended the event in fifth position with a time of 23:09.

“These athletes performed amazingly. We were lucky enough to come away with three medals, and our 11 and 12 boys themselves were photo finished shots away from being silver and bronze. The athletes again performed outstandingly. The conditions were pretty brutal. “The weather was beautiful, but really hot and long days made fatigue set in, especially on day two. But we actually were able to get the most medals on day two,” the coach said. 

Lyall Menzies ended the 11-12 male triathlon in eighth place and the aquathlon in the eighth position.

Out of the 10 countries present in Barbados, The Bahamas was awarded the most organised federation at the 2024 Carifta Triathlon, Aquathlon and Mixed Relay Championships.

Rounding out last year’s top three podium spots were reigning champions Barbados, Bermuda and The Bahamas.