Hutson optimistic about fitness, funding as CARIFTA prep begins

The Leonora Track and Field Facility on the West Coast of Demerara will see a bit of action today as Guyanese athletes commence their quest to participate in the 2022 CARIFTA Games. This is the first CARIFTA trial.
The Caribbean Free Trade Association (CARIFTA) Games are seen as the marquee event for young athletes around the Caribbean, and with the event being staged again this year following a two-year break, the Athletics Association of Guyana (AAG) is getting an early start in regard to putting together a team.
Today’s trial will give local athletes their first of three opportunities to make the qualifying mark, which has remained the same since 2019.

In an invited comment with Guyana Times Sport, AAG President Aubrey Hutson said the AAG hopes to have a contingent of 15 or more athletes.
“And we are hoping to put together – at least from what we would have seen in our first developmental meet, we may have, like, a 15-person contingent heading to Jamaica for the Easter weekend for the CARIFTA Games,” Hutson said on the topic of contingent size.
He added, “So we want to give our athletes (in) the first of the official CARIFTA trials an opportunity to come out and compete on Sunday (today), and we hope that we can, you know, put together a decent team to represent Guyana.”
Currently, Hutson says, there are no concerns about athletes’ fitness, since the clubs have been working overtime. The AAG’s worries, however, lie in the lack of new talent owing to the absence of schools’ athletics championships.
“There are some clubs that, throughout the pandemic, would have heeded the advice of the Athletics Association of Guyana in finding new and innovative ways to train. While they may not have had the amount of competition, training was ongoing. Even within that season, we had more than five athletes going off to the USA on scholarships,” The AAG president explained on the matter of athletes’ preparedness.

However, Hutson went on to raise a relative concern, stating, “So, you know athletes are in good shape, reasonably good shape, what we would have lost are the numbers due to the absence of schools athletics activities. There is no Nationals, you know, the inter-school and inter-house level. And that has created a downturn in the amount of, you know, student-age athletes showing interest in our sport.
“But we’re going to find innovative ways to bring them back into the sport, and we’re working hard through the club systems,” Hutson assured.
When asked about funding, Hutson was absolutely positive about the topic, citing the recent Sport budget allocations as his assurance.
“Since becoming President, a position that I always champion, especially at the CARIFTA level, and so far, for the last nine years of activities – wouldn’t have been 9 CARIFTA, because we had the absence of two – we were able to send all of our qualifiers to the CARIFTA Games.”
He continued, highlighting, “With what we heard and saw coming out in the 2022 Budget, where there’s sufficient funding for the support of sport and sporting activities such as the CARIFTA Games, we’re very, very optimistic, almost assured that you will get enough funding to send our team to the crypto games.”
The 2022 CARIFTA Games will be hosted in Jamaica over the Easter Weekend, April 16-18. (Jemima Holmes)