By BRENT STUBBS

Chief Sports Editor

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net    

LACARTHEA Cooper said while she has no objection to Grand Bahamian Shania Adderley being named to the Olympic team, she felt she should not be deprived of her opportunity to travel with Team Bahamas to Paris, France.

The Bahamas Olympic Committee finally named a 20-member team to compete at the games from July 27 to August 11 and missing from the list was Cooper, who placed third in the Bahamas Association of Athletic Associations’ National Championships last month at the original Thomas A Robinson National Stadium.

Cooper, a 20-year-old student at New Mexico State, did not get to compete in the World Relays in May at the Thomas A Robinson National Stadium when Adderley, 16, teamed up with Shaunae Miller-Uibo, Steven Gardiner and Alonzo Russell to book The Bahamas ticket to Paris. 

But during the BAAA Nationals, by virtue of finishing third in the women’s 400m, Cooper felt she should have been included in the mixed relay pool instead of Adderley, who was fifth.

BAAA athletes’ representative Kaiwan Culmer said there’s no transparency when it comes down to the team selection and it showed in this case.

“We all know that when it comes to track and field, you always take the top finishers in head-to-head competition,” said Culmer, the country’s national triple jump champion.

“What is happening here is something that has been going on in track and field for quite a while. It was announced that Lacarthea was named to the team and Shania was not, due to the position they finished at the Nationals.”

Culmer, standing in support of Cooper, said the BOC and the BAAA is dealing with a lot of discouragement and is taking the pain from one athlete and placing it on another.

“It’s an issue and it needs to be rectified,” said Culmer, who noted that he’s leading the charge to rectify the problem. 

“The board agreed to name Lacarthea Cooper to the team and all of a sudden, she is not there,” he stated.

Cooper said she’s very discouraged.

“Like any other athlete, they worked hard and their hard work is not being paid off because they give your position to somebody else, it ain’t fair,” she stated.

“I had a feeling that something like this was going to happen when I saw social media. So when it happened, it didn’t really move me because I was going to speak out about this injustice.”

Cooper said there’s no doubt that Adderley defied the odds at World Relays and she put her best foot forward to help the team qualify, but at Nationals she came home and did what she had to do to get on the team, which was to finish in the top three.

If she doesn’t make the trip to Paris, it would be the second straight Olympics that Cooper will be denied a chance to compete at the games. 

As a 17-year-old coming out of St Augustine’s College, Cooper was selected to the women’s 4 x 400m relay team for the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo, Japan, but she didn’t get to go because she was sidelined with COVID-19.

“Right now I could cry because the Olympics only comes every four years. A lot of stuff could happen in four years,” she said. 

“I don’t think I should miss this one because of politics.

“The first one, I missed it because of COVID, which is understandable. But this one, it ain’t fair. I could only pray. That’s the reason why I ain’t crying. I just give it to God because what can I do?”

Culmer said he personally believes there was a disconnect between the BAAA and the BOC and Cooper is being caught in the middle. 

“It shouldn’t be an issue between the athletes. That’s my cry and that is all Lacarthea is saying,” Culmer stressed. “It’s an organisational miscommunication.”

Culmer said he heard Archer say a week ago in the media that he was willing to give up his own accreditation for the games to allow Adderley to go to the games. “How did we get from him saying that Shania was in the position to now where Lacarthea is in the position? It’s almost like they are swapping the pain.

“The pain that Lacarthea is now feeling, Shania has already felt that. They have now switched it when they are saying Shania doesn’t deserve the pain, so let’s give it to someone else.”

Cooper said if she had the opportunity to come home to compete in the World Relays, she would have, but her coaches didn’t allow her to make the trip.

So once the team qualified, she came home and did what she had to do at the nationals, which was to finish in the top three. So she doesn’t see why the BOC won’t allow her to go to the Olympics, just as they are doing for Adderley.