Gen­er­al sec­re­tary of the Na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion of Ath­let­ics Ad­min­is­tra­tions of T&T (NAAATT), Je­hue Gor­don says the board of the NAAATT was sched­uled to meet last night to rat­i­fy and se­lect this coun­try’s Carif­ta Games team for the 52nd edi­tion of the ju­nior track and field meet.

In the lead-up to the Games, which will be held at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um in Mu­cu­rapo, Port-of-Spain, from April 19-21, the NAAATT host­ed three days of tri­als at two sep­a­rate venues last week­end.

Field events were con­test­ed at the train­ing field of the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um on Fri­day (April 4), while track events hap­pened at the Man­ny Ramjohn Sta­di­um in Mara­bel­la on Sat­ur­day and Sun­day.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia Sports on Mon­day, Gor­don said, “What will hap­pen now is the board will meet to­mor­row night (Tues­day) to dis­cuss and rat­i­fy the fi­nal con­tin­gent that will rep­re­sent T&T at this Carif­ta Games. The team will be named on Wednes­day (to­day) morn­ing.”

Gor­don said de­spite the mi­nor in­con­ve­nience pre­sent­ed due to the un­avail­abil­i­ty of the main com­pe­ti­tion area at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um due to on­go­ing up­grades to the ath­let­ics track, the ath­letes com­pet­ed well un­der chal­leng­ing cir­cum­stances.

“I be­lieve this week­end was a great show of what we stand for here as T&T’s track and field as­so­ci­a­tion. The ath­letes left all on the line. It is a unique sit­u­a­tion be­cause ob­vi­ous­ly, we’ve had some set­backs. This year the fa­cil­i­ties and the avail­abil­i­ty of them was one of the is­sues but we have been flex­i­ble and flu­id.”

Day one saw 22 ath­letes at­tain­ing Carif­ta stan­dards, fol­lowed by 38 on Day two and 12 on Day three in their re­spec­tive dis­ci­plines, led by un­der-20 ath­lete Adri­an­na Quam­i­na, who bet­tered the bench­mark with two ap­pa­ra­tus. Chas­ing a dis­tance of 39.21 me­tres to qual­i­fy for the girls’ dis­cus, Quam­i­na of D’Abadie Pro­gres­sive sur­passed the mark on each of her six at­tempts on her way to win­ning the event. Her best throw land­ed 45.56m away from the throw­ing cir­cle. Two oth­er ath­letes al­so bet­tered the Carif­ta qual­i­fy­ing stan­dard in the event with Ruth Irvine fir­ing a best throw of 41.17m and Pey­ton Win­ter record­ing 40.78m.

Quam­i­na and Win­ter were two of three ath­letes to beat the qual­i­fy­ing mark in two sep­a­rate field events. They both were bet­ter than the 11.74m stan­dard in the girls’ Un­der-20 shot put. The event was won by Nat­taly Lin­do with 13.56m with Win­ter sec­ond with a best throw of 13.25 and Quam­i­na third with 12.45m.

Alexan­der Al­fred al­so at­tained a stan­dard in two events, mea­sur­ing a best ef­fort of 13.55m in the boys’ U-17 shot put and plac­ing sec­ond be­hind Jaa­fari Shaw who pro­duced 14.62m. With the bench­mark set at 35.08m in the boys’ U-17 dis­cus, Al­fred al­so at­tained the stan­dard there, plac­ing third with a best mea­sure­ment of 36.62m. Nykel Gomez (45.18m), Kai Fran­cis (39.90m), D’An­dre Wal­lace (36.23m) and Kel­lon Potts (35.41m) placed first, sec­ond, fourth and fifth, re­spec­tive­ly.

Day two of the tri­als was un­der­pinned by the events of the boys’ U-20 100m fi­nal where 2024 Carif­ta Games gold-medal win­ning broth­er Kadeem and Ha­keem Chi­napoo led four fi­nal­ists to achieve the qual­i­fy­ing time. Kadeem, the boys’ U-17 200m cham­pi­on in 2024 won a tri­al race in 10.53 sec­onds, the same time as his broth­er and Sim­plex team­mate Ha­keem. Tre­vaughn Stew­art of Burn­ley and Za­c­cheus Charles of Point Fortin New Jets al­so clocked iden­ti­cal times of 10.56 but on­ly frac­tions of a sec­ond sep­a­rat­ed them in­to third and fourth, re­spec­tive­ly.

The boys’ U-20 400m fi­nal al­so pro­duced sev­er­al qual­i­fiers. Dashaun Leza­ma won in 47.10, div­ing well be­neath the stan­dard mark of 48.59. Dae­shaun Cole clocked 47.24, Ben Is­rael Ban­nis­ter 47.66, Joshua Per­ry 48.05, and Mourice Gue­vara 48.26. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, fel­low fi­nal­ist Alessan­dro Gou­veia was able to at­tain the stan­dard ear­li­er in the pre­lim­i­nary round in 48.35 in heat two.

Con­corde Ath­let­ics twins Tyrique and Tenique Vin­cent were al­so among the day’s star per­form­ers as both mul­ti-dis­ci­pline ath­letes se­cured Games stan­dards in mul­ti­ple events. Tyrique was the lone qual­i­fi­er in the boys’ in­di­vid­ual 110m hur­dles, win­ning that event in 14.40, just in­side the 14.43 mark­er. He al­so won the De­cathlon by amass­ing 5,802 points.

Sim­i­lar­ly, Tenique was the on­ly one in her event to at­tain a qual­i­fi­ca­tion stan­dard in the U-20 girls’ long jump on Fri­day, leap­ing be­yond the bench­mark of 5.50m and land­ing at 5.60m with her best ef­fort. On Sat­ur­day, she qual­i­fied her­self in the girls’ U-20 100m hur­dles as well, plac­ing third in that fi­nal in 14.81 but well be­neath the stan­dard of 15.59. McK­ailah Warde placed sec­ond in 14.58 and last year’s U-17 100m hur­dles sil­ver medal­list Jen­na-Marie Thomas won in 14.11 to al­so po­ten­tial­ly book a spot on T&T’s 2025 team.

On day three, Ha­keem Chi­napoo ce­ment­ed a lane in the boys’ U-20 200m as well, win­ning the fi­nal in 21.14 and set­ting the pace for now few­er than four oth­er sprint­ers from the fi­nal to dip be­neath the Carif­ta stan­dard time of 21.74. Cole (21.26), Stew­art (21.55). Ban­nis­ter (21.60) and Za­c­cheus Charles (21.74) were the oth­ers.

With so many qual­i­ty per­for­mances abound through­out the three-day meet, Gor­don agreed that it was ev­i­dent that ath­letes were ea­ger to earn se­lec­tion and to com­pete be­fore a par­ti­san home crowd at the Carif­ta Games on East­er Week­end.

“We would all like to see the best team rep­re­sent T&T. The ath­letes that have been com­pet­ing, that have stayed sharp, they are the ones that we have seen progress to run­ning fast times. They have been pret­ty con­sis­tent and now it is up to their coach­es to help them stay at the top of their game for the next two weeks,” said Gor­don.