NAS­SAU, Ba­hamas – Promi­nent track & field ad­min­is­tra­tor, Alpheus Fin­layson died on Fri­day, a few weeks af­ter the death of his wife, Dawn. He was 76.

Fin­layson was the pres­i­dent of the Ba­hamas Am­a­teur Ath­let­ic As­so­ci­a­tion from 1989 to 1997, and he was al­so vice-pres­i­dent of the Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean Ath­let­ic Con­fed­er­a­tion (CAC) and the North Amer­i­can, Cen­tral Amer­i­can, and Caribbean Area Ath­let­ic As­so­ci­a­tions (NACAC).

He made his­to­ry when he be­came the first Ba­hami­an elect­ed to the 27-mem­ber coun­cil of the IAAF (now World Ath­let­ics), the gov­ern­ing or­gan­i­sa­tion for track & field around the world.

Un­der the lead­er­ship of Fin­layson, Ba­hamas se­cured its first Olympic medal in track & field when triple jumper Frank Ruther­ford won bronze at the 1992 Games in Barcelona, Spain, and first World Cham­pi­onship medal when quar­ter-mil­er Pauline Davis won sil­ver in 1995 in Göthen­berg, Swe­den.

Fin­layson was a best-sell­ing au­thor, and cor­re­spon­dent on the sport, host­ing week­ly ra­dio and TV pro­grammes, as well as writ­ing news­pa­per columns in the Ba­hamas and glob­al­ly.

He al­so worked as a fi­nan­cial ser­vices rep­re­sen­ta­tive for a lo­cal in­sur­ance com­pa­ny, and he was prepar­ing for the fi­nal farewell for his late wife that was set to take place ear­li­er on Sat­ur­day.

CMC