Injuries to the top sprinters have reduced the BVI's team to four athletes for the weekend Caribbean and Central American Track and Field Championships in Grenada.

With double All America and CAC Games 100 meter champion Dion Crabbe and Tahesia Harrigan sidelined, Keita Cline, Cliff Williams, Eric Mathias and Kevin Fahie, will carry the territory's banner at the championships.

National coach Dag Samuels says the injuries to Crabbe, who hurt his leg in the third meet of the season and Harrigan, who pulled up lame at the Drake Relays are major losses. "It has really put a damper on the way we had things planned out. We have to go and now change the entire structure of our competitions and our athletes," he pointed out. "There are some events we won't be able to do because they are out. Even with Keita Cline present, we won't really try run a relay team at the CAC Championships. Dion's the guy running 10.1 and 20.3 and everyone else is 10.6 and 10.7. It really doesn't make any sense to have a relay team at the CAC Championships, because we have to be able to run under 40 seconds."
Crabbe said during his third race of the Indoor season, he had a slight injury to the muscles on the side of his left knee, but thought nothing of it. "It has been bugging me all season and I had it x-rayed and it showed the muscle is torn," he explained. "The doctors have advised to take a month off and let it heal and it's frustrating. I don't want the people in the BVI to give up, because one time you're up and another time you're down. I want them to keep the support. Next year it's a bigger fish we're going after," he said of the 2004 Olympics. "The fact that I'm out now makes me more determined."

Crabbe says he want to see other BVI athletes stepping up. "I was really ready to run this summer," he stated. "I'm tired of being in the shadow the guy makes it to the finals but never medal. I have my mind made up to run."
Crabbe and Harrigan had already qualified for the August 1-17 Pan Am Games in the Dominican Republic and the IAAF World Athletics Championships in Paris, France in August.

Cline and Mathias will compete at the Pan Am Games with Cline moving on to the World Championships.