Na­tion­al long jump record hold­ers Tyra Git­tens-Spotsville and Kelsey Daniel have been named in a 13-mem­ber team to rep­re­sent T&T at the North Amer­i­can, Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean (NACAC) Area Track and Field Cham­pi­onships in Freeport, Grand Ba­hama, Ba­hamas, from Au­gust 15-17.

Git­tens-Spotsville, who holds the na­tion­al women’s long jump record (6.96 me­tres), will con­test the event. The Tokyo Olympics 10th-place fin­ish­er is one of two women se­lect­ed. The Kaizen Pan­thers mem­ber is seek­ing to qual­i­fy for this year’s World Cham­pi­onships in Tokyo, Japan, from Sep­tem­ber 13-21.

Git­tens-Spotsville will be eye­ing the 6.86m stan­dard when she lines up on the long jump run­way in Freeport. She is cur­rent­ly at 33rd on the World Rank­ings and will be among the top 36 should she miss the World Cham­pi­onship qual­i­fy­ing mark to se­cure a tick­et to Japan.

Sprint­er Ak­i­lah Lewis is among the field in the women’s 100m. The 2024 US Col­le­giate 4x100m gold medal­list with Ole Miss Uni­ver­si­ty will be tar­get­ing the 11.07-sec­ond stan­dard to join Leah Bertrand (10.92) as lo­cal qual­i­fiers in the short sprint for Tokyo.

Her broth­er Omari Lewis is among two lo­cals to vie for ho­n­ours in the men’s 100m in the Ba­hamas. Omari won the na­tion­al ti­tle (10.18). The 2023 World Cham­pi­onships 4x100m team mem­ber sped to a per­son­al best of 10.07 on May 3, 0.07 sec­onds off the World’s 10.00 qual­i­fy­ing time. He will be joined by Jaden De Souza, who clocked a per­son­al best of 10.20 to fin­ish be­hind Omari at the Na­tion­al Open Cham­pi­onships at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um in Mu­cu­rapo, Port-of-Spain on Sat­ur­day. The Abi­lene Wild­cats run­ner will have the com­pa­ny of Paris Olympian Ell­jah Joseph in the men’s 200m.

Men’s in­door long jump record hold­er (8.16), Kelsey Daniel, will be among the en­trants in the men’s long jump. The Texas Uni­ver­si­ty fi­nal-year stu­dent will have the 8.27m Tokyo-ask­ing dis­tance on his radar over the week­end.

Na­tion­al men’s shot put/dis­cus record-hold­er Christo­pher Craw­ford will fly the na­tion­al flag in both throw events. Craw­ford will be joined by 2011 World Youth Cham­pi­onships fi­nal­ist Hezekiel Romeo in the shot put and Umar Sandy in the dis­cus.

Two-time Carif­ta Boys’ Un­der-20 5,000m cham­pi­on, Ta­fari Wal­dron, is ex­pect­ed to be on the start­ing line in the men’s 5,000m along with long-dis­tance run­ner Nicholas Ro­many.

An­oth­er for­mer Carif­ta dou­ble win­ner, Nicholas Lan­deau, will join Ro­many in the 1,500m. Ro­many sped to a new per­son­al best of 3:50.67 to take the na­tion­al ti­tle on Sat­ur­day ahead of Lan­deau, who re­bound­ed to win the na­tion­al 800m top spot the next day. Lan­deau and Zalen Nel­son will go for pre­cious medal in the 800m as well.

The team was an­nounced by the Na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion of Ath­let­ic Ad­min­is­tra­tion (NAAA) via a press re­lease Thurs­day (Au­gust 7).

Sec­re­tary of the NAAA Je­hue Gor­don told Guardian Me­dia Sports that sev­er­al ath­letes who were con­sid­ered for se­lec­tion opt­ed not to make the trip to the Ba­hamas, while oth­ers who achieved the re­quired stan­dards are among those on the na­tion­al con­tin­gent for the Ju­nior (U-23) Pan Am Games in As­cen­sion, Paraguay. The track and field sched­ule in Paraguay be­gins on Au­gust 18, one day af­ter the end of the NACAC Cham­pi­onships.

T&T bagged two sil­ver medals at the 2022 NACAC Area Cham­pi­onships, al­so host­ed in Freeport. Keshorn Wal­cott was sec­ond in the men’s javelin (83.94) while Jerod El­cock, Er­ic Har­ri­son Jr, Asa Guev­era and Kyle Greaux teamed up to cop the run­ner-up spot in the men’s 4x100m (38.94).

Lo­cal ath­letes last tast­ed gold at the meet at the 2018 edi­tion in Toron­to, Cana­da, when Greaux raced to the men’s 200m gold in a meet record of 20.11.

T&T con­tin­gent

Men

100m - Omari Lewis (Con­corde), Jaden De Souza (Abi­lene Wild­cats)

200m - Eli­jah Joseph (Mount­ing Ea­gles), De Souza

800m - Nicholas Lan­deau (Pace & Per­for­mance), Zalen Nel­son (Mor­vant Jets)

1,500m - Nicholas Ro­many (TTRC), Lan­deau, Ta­fari Wal­dron (Cougars)

5,000m - Ro­many, Wal­dron

Long jump - Kelsey Daniel (Kaizen Pan­thers)

Shot put - Christo­pher Craw­ford (Kaizen Pan­thers), Hezekiel Romeo (As­cend)

Dis­cus - Umar Sandy (UTT)

Staff

Man­ag­er - Michelle Al­leyne-Pen­nie

Coach­es - Dave Sandy (Sprint), Ja­son Par­ris (mid­dle/long/dstance), Ker­ron Brown (throw), Al­leyne-Pen­nie (jumps)

Med­ical - Ay­o­delle Taffe (mas­sage ther­a­pist)