Ralston 'Grandfather' Henry sails through the air for his career best Long Jump mark of 7.53 meters (24'81/2" inches) at Sunday's BVI Invitational

Low numbers but quality performances highlight BVI Invitational

BY DEAN GREENAWAY

What Sunday's BVI Invitational Track and Field meet at the A. O. Shirley Recreation Grounds lacked in quantity of participants was made up by the quality of performances.

At the end of the meet, two All Comers records were broken by two visiting athletes; Two BVI athletes recorded personal bests; While only two athletes came from Nevis, they walked off with the two Athletes of the Meet awards. Furthermore, two athletes from Dominica qualified for the CAC Championships and two athletes had National Jr. Records.

Nevis' Tanika Liburd missed her personal best in the Long Jump by two centimeters, winning with a leap of 5.75 meters (18'10¼"), which broke Rose Phillips' 24 year old mark of 18'3". Liburd also won both sprints in 12.47 and 26.1 seconds respectively.

Dominica's Cathrine Stoute tossed the Javelin 42.20 meters (138'5") breaking teammate Isabella Charles' mark of 39.68 meters (130'2") of 2002. BVI's Ralston 'Grandfather' Henry missed Keita Cline's Long Jump meet record while establishing a career best performance of 7.53 meters (24'8½"). Aliston Potter lowered his 100 meter best to 10.93 seconds, the best electronic time by a BVI under 18 athlete. Tahuana Sully broke Dominica's National Jr. Discus record with a throw of 39.34 (129'0½")
Liburd's teammate Kevon Pierre won the 100, 200 and 400 meters in times of 10.76. 21.9 and 51.23 seconds respectively as they walked off with Athlete of the Meet honors.

"I expected Kevon to do quite well," coach Lester Blackett said. "His biggest competition was in the 400 meters when he had to come from behind and win."

He had doubts about Liburd. "We've actually only done three days of training in the last two months for track," Blackett noted. "She just came out of winning the MVP for the best center court player in the OECS Under 17 Netball Championships and the best overall player. We thought it was fitting for her to come here with that background, even though she wasn't able to train because of Netball, and she has really done exceptionally well. She came within two centimeters of her Long Jump best," he noted. "They performed extremely well, winning seven gold medals out of seven events and I'm proud of them."

BVI Amateur Athletic Association president Rey O'Neal said the meet was disappointing in some ways because of the low turnout in terms of participants but there was some good competition.

"The athletes from Dominica were quite satisfied as two athletes made standards they had set for the CAC Championships," O'Neal noted. "There were good performances from Kevon Pierre and Tanika Liburd and Al Potter of the local team did well. The lack of overall participation by some of our home based athletes was disappointing. But, given the fact that we had graduation ceremonies and a number of other things going on at the same time, it was perhaps to be expected, not that we wanted it to happen. It's nothing that we did not anticipate."

O'Neal said Eric Mathias performed well in the Discus as expected. "Ralston Henry came very close to breaking Keita Cline's All Comers record in the Long Jump. He was very consistent over seven meters. Hopefully this can be the turning point for him."