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Lucian Women Put More Blows on BVI
(28 May 2000) - The St. Lucia national team beat up on the British Virgin Islands a couple of weeks ago in the first leg of a qualifying tie for the 2000 Caribbean Football Union Women's Gold Cup. Tia Clarke had a hat-trick, and the visitors were up 6-nil at the half in Tortola. They added two more in the second period for an 8-nil aggregate advantage.
During the week before the return leg, I spoke to a coach and two members of the national team, one of whom posited that St. Lucia's inability to score more than two goals in the second half of the away leg indicated that BVI were beginning to "read" their opponents a bit better. "The second leg is going to be much harder," she said.Victorin Weekes never thought so. (He turned out to be correct.) "I think the girls are looking forward to playing in front of their home crowd, and they're going to do well," said Weekes, a member of the coaching staff. Talk about a masterpiece of understatement. Beverly Francis netted a double hat-trick for St. Lucia - six goals! One of the senior members of the team, she began to take advantage early, and she did so often.
Her first goal came in the eighth minute, her second in the twelfth. Kelly-Ann St. Clair (21) first leg hat-trick hero Clarke (27) and captain Lisa Vidal (42, 44) gifted St. Lucia a half-time lead of six nothing. Francis opened the scoring again in the twelfth minute of the second half, followed by St. Clair ninety seconds later. Francis, not to be outdone, converted again in the sixty-fifth, sixty-sixth and seventy-third. Fittingly, the icing came from the captain, Vidal scoring in the seventy-fifth and again a minute from time to complete her beaver-trick. A smallish crowd was delighted as St. Lucia won the tie in overcast conditions twenty-one goals to the good and with the opposite side of the score-sheet still unblemished.
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Working His Way Into The Spotlight
(27 May 2000) - A world-class pole vault field gathered Friday at the inaugural Sky Invitational Track and Field meet in Phoenix Arizona. Among them were American Stacy Dragila and St. Lucian Dominic Johnson. Although Dragila was most impressive at the end of the night, her Caribbean colleague had reason to be proud as well. Dragila cleared 15' 1¾" to set an outdoor women's world pole vault record two weeks after tying the old mark at the Modesto Relays. Her compatriot, Nick Hysong - a former NCAA champion for Arizona State and fourth at last year's world championships - won the men's event at 18-8 ¾. Johnson followed Hysong at 18-4 1/2. That height for the University of Arizona graduate will move him up ten spots from 33 to 23 on the International Amateur Athletics Federation world list for 2000. Dominic stopped a centimetre short of his Central American and Caribbean Games record and five short of his personal best.The 25-year-old will be happy to have done well so close to his home base of Flagstaff, Arizona, but the result is especially significant in the context of what he's been through recently. His vault at the Sky Invitational was his best of the four meets he's entered since April, when he returned to competition following arthroscopic shoulder surgery last October. Within the past couple of months, he's expressed concern about that same shoulder, but now it appears that he's back on track as he sets out to achieve his stated goal of nineteen feet.The journey continues in Europe, where Dominic will compete in some eight meets before 19 July. He left on Wednesday, two years after first telling me that he wanted to get a taste of European competition. Between Slovenia, Greece, Finland, Germany and Switzerland he will meet some of the best in the world. With his surgery now well behind him, he has surprised himself with his recent heights. By the time he returns to Arizona in July, Dominic is hoping that he'll have to set himself a few new goals, perhaps including an attention-grabbing finish to the season at September's Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia.
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Big Bodies Are Back
(2June 2000) - How do you maintain a high level of excellence abroad and remain virtually invisible on the domestic front? Sounds like a question for an American presidential candidate, but that's the situation in which at least two local sporting organisations find themselves. The difference between the Athletics and Bodybuilding Associations is that most of the island's most gifted track and field athletes are overseas, whereas all of its bodybuilders, including emeritus Rick Wayne, are right here.
Well, we'll be seeing some of them this weekend, after what seems like an eternity. Sunday's Post-Independence Bodybuilding Classic comes eighteen months after the last show held on local soil. The muscle men (and women, it must be noted) have had great success regionally and internationally during that time, winning at the OECS, Southern Caribbean, CAC and even Commonwealth championships. Now, we get a chance to see what's so impressive about these chiseled and very disciplined athletes.
There are just two divisions for the Post-Independence Classic, light/welter and middle/heavy. Of course, Julian Felix and his ilk are way above this level of competition - CAC/Commonwealth champ Felix and Rolandson 'the Beast' Auguste will appear as guest posers. As for the actual competitors, there will be no maidenly musculature on display, but gentlemen such as Bill Wilson, a former CAC champion; Alphonsus 'Shortman' Joseph, 1999 CAC bantamweight champion; and Lawrence 'Robocop' Stephens ought to put on a tremendous show for the fans.
Sunday's championships form part of the selection process for St. Lucia's team to the Fifth Eastern Caribbean Championships in the United States Virgin Islands next month.
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Promesse Goes First and Second
 (3 June 2000) - Favorite son of the Desruisseaux soil, 25-yar-old sprinter Ronald Promesse competed Friday at Houston's Rice University, in the Runsport Allcomers meet. Overcoming an uncharacteristically poor start, the 12th fastest man in the world this year came back to claim second place in the 100m dash. The winner of the event was Donovan Powell of Jamaica - another Jamaican, Leon Gordon was in third.
Chagrined at his defeat in the shorter sprint, Promesse's moment of truth came in the 200m, where he again lined up against Powell. The veteran Jamaican, though, could do no better than fourth, behind two Americans and Promesse (20.88s) across the finish line. The winning time for the St. Lucian runner falls within the Olympic B standard.Promesse, who had a world class 100m run of 10.17s earlier this year, says that he's still looking forward to traveling to Europe this summer so he can tune up for the Sydney Olympics in September. Next weekend, though, he'll be part of a St. Lucian team at the Frankie Colon Memorial Track and Field Meet in Puerto Rico.
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Ricardo's Rough Rider Revenge Not Good Enough
(28 May 2000) - The Long Island Rough Riders beat the Pittsburgh Riverhounds 2-1 Saturday night in a home game at Mitchel Athletic Complex. Pittsburgh entered the game, though, with a 3-1 aggregate advantage, and they advance to the US Open Cup tournament. David "Bolo" Flavius - the St. Lucian forward who scored the first goal in the first leg of the tie - was instrumental in winning a corner for the Hounds in the 21st minute of the return leg. Jair Vasquez took the spot kick and Nick Terlecky converted. Long Island, for whom national midfielder Ricardo Blanchard plays, countered with a goal in the 26th minute by Ben Diallo, off a throw-in by Edson Buddle. They scored agin in the second half, a Dahir Mohammed goal from ten yards in the 50th minute off a corner kick by Gerry Lucey.
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Magloire Finishes Fourth In Follow-Up To Long Jump Title
(28 May 2000) - A little over a year ago, St. Lucian Dane Magloire broke the national triple jump record. A year later, he added the long jump mark. Then he went on to win the NCAA Division II long jump title. Some forty-eight hours later, he was back on the runway, vying for the triple jump title in the Championships at North Carolina State.
The final leap for the Falcon sophomore was short of his best, clearing only 15.51m or 50' 10" - Dane finished fourth. Last year, he was third in the triple jump final. Dane's leap was third best for St. Augustine's University, whose Tim Rusan won with a clearance of 16.23m - Lancelot Gooden's 15.68m was good for silver. A fourth Falcon, Cleveland McClory leapt 15.38m to end fifth. Overall the Falcon men placed second to Abilene Christian, who repeated as DII track and field champions.
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St. Lucia Plays Host to Windies Women
(2 June 2000) - Yes, yes, the St. Lucia Women's Cricket Association is hosting the West Indies Women's Cricket Federation 2000 tournament, and St. Lucia are defending league champions. Yet, here it is, opening day, St. Lucia and Grenada locked in battle and I don't have the story. Mea culpa, I shall make up for it next week, especially if our ladies bring home the bacon, as they've promised to do. I was at Gros Islet to see the beginning of the match, with Verena Felicien leading the troops out into battle, blue and white uniforms resplendent in the morning sun, the white ball, the black sightscreens, the scoreboard and proper field markings, the lame umpire. I took it all in, and impressive as all this was, I wonder why it took a tournament of this magnitude before we could install all of these measures. Maybe the Ministry of Sports, the town and village councils and the (men's) Cricket Association don't consider our measly Piton Beer competition worthy.
That gripe aside - sightscreen, scoreboard and markings will stay in place after the WIWCF tourney - the women were outstanding, from what I saw. Team spirit and morale were excellent: with eight West Indies players on the team, that should be no surprise. The male West Indies has five players from regional champs, Jamaica. Our national team is so powerful they had the luxury of introducing thirteen-year-old medium pacer Minelva Flavius. They made over a hundred runs against Grenada with only two wickets down by the time I had to leave for my paying job.
Mind you, they're putting this together on a shoestring. The team itself is sponsored by everyone's favorite telecoms ogre, Cable & Wireless, who've been supportive of this successful group over the past three years. As a whole, however, the tournament was woefully under budget. It is, after all, the largest ever WIWCF competition, with six teams, including Trinidad and Tobago, defending knockout champions Jamaica, returnees Dominica and debutante St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
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