There was a time when prepar­ing a na­tion­al team meant get­ting the play­ers to­geth­er, mak­ing sure the uni­forms were packed, sort­ing out the trav­el, and then fo­cus­ing al­most en­tire­ly on what was go­ing to hap­pen once the whis­tle blew.

Too of­ten, coach­ing and man­age­ment teams de­fine a suc­cess­ful in­jury re­cov­ery sole­ly by an ath­lete’s abil­i­ty to re­turn to phys­i­cal train­ing. This nar­row fo­cus over­looks a crit­i­cal com­po­nent of re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion: men­tal readi­ness. The in­ter­sec­tion of psy­cho­log­i­cal and phys­i­cal in­jury is one of the most ne­glect­ed ar­eas in sports med­i­cine, where emo­tion­al, cog­ni­tive and be­hav­iour­al bar­ri­ers are rarely weighed as heav­i­ly as strength tests, range of mo­tion scores, or con­di­tion­ing bench­marks. Yet, men­tal readi­ness is a de­ci­sive de­ter­mi­nant of ath­let­ic suc­cess, es­pe­cial­ly in high-stakes com­pe­ti­tion against elite op­po­nents.

KINGSTON, Ja­maica — Chica­go Bulls shoot­ing guard Nor­man Pow­ell strong­ly be­lieves that a FI­BA el­i­gi­bil­i­ty rule is pre­vent­ing oth­er top tal­ent­ed bas­ket­ballers from rep­re­sent­ing Ja­maica on the in­ter­na­tion­al stage.

Trinidad and To­ba­go’s women’s un­der-19 crick­et team se­cured a state­ment win over Bar­ba­dos in their fi­nal round-robin match of the Crick­et West In­dies Ris­ing Stars Un­der-19 Women’s Cham­pi­onship at the Coolidge Crick­et Ground in An­tigua on Fri­day.

KINGSTON – Ja­maica Kings­men cap­tain Rov­man Pow­ell is tar­get­ing their up­com­ing match against the Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers to fi­nal­ly get on the points ta­ble in the Re­pub­lic Bank Caribbean Pre­mier League (CPL).

The Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League Pre­mier Di­vi­sion will be con­test­ed via the reg­u­lar 17-team one-round league for­mat for the up­com­ing 2026 sea­son af­ter be­ing bailed out by the Min­istry of Sport and Youth Af­fairs to the sum of $406,700.

ST JOHN’S, An­tigua – Trinidad and To­ba­go Women are the new­ly crowned cham­pi­ons of the CWI Ris­ing Stars Un­der-19 Women’s Cham­pi­onship af­ter de­feat­ing de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons Bar­ba­dos Women by six wick­ets in an ex­cit­ing fi­nal, Sat­ur­day (Au­gust 15).

GROS ISLET – The Saint Lu­cia Kings clinched their sec­ond vic­to­ry of the Re­pub­lic Bank Caribbean Pre­mier League sea­son in dra­mat­ic fash­ion, over­com­ing both the An­tigua and Bar­bu­da Fal­cons and treach­er­ous weath­er con­di­tions to win by three wick­ets with just two balls to spare in St Lu­cia on Fri­day.

Trinidad and To­ba­go will face Bar­ba­dos at Coolidge, An­tigua on Fri­day in the fi­nal round of the West In­dies Ris­ing Stars Women’s Un­der-19 tour­na­ment, with both sides al­ready guar­an­teed places in Sat­ur­day’s fi­nal. To­day’s en­counter will there­fore serve as a dress re­hearsal, giv­ing both teams an op­por­tu­ni­ty to as­sess what the oth­er brings ahead of the ti­tle de­cider.

KINGSTON, Ja­maica – The Guyana Ama­zon War­riors ex­tend­ed the Ja­maica Kings­men’s night­mare start to the Re­pub­lic Bank Caribbean Pre­mier League (CPL) by thump­ing them by six wick­ets to pick up a win in their open­ing match on Thurs­day.

“Oh what a tan­gled web we weave, when first we prac­tice to de­ceive..” (from the 1808 po­em “Marmion: A tale of Flod­den Field” by Sir Wal­ter Scott)

Merere Gon­za­les, pres­i­dent of the Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League (SS­FL), says there is still the pos­si­bil­i­ty of To­ba­go schools, Sig­nal Hill Sec­ondary and Spey­side Sec­ondary, be­ing part of the 17-team Pre­mier Di­vi­sion for the up­com­ing sea­son.