Paul-Andre Walker, Staff Reporter
ARRIVING TO the quiet congratulations of close friends, family and a solitary supporter waving a national flag, Jamaica's CARIFTA team scuttled through the arrival tunnel at the Norman Manley International Airport to what wasn't quite a heroes' welcome on Tuesday evening.
The see of yellow came prepared to answer the question that a harsh Jamaican populace has been dying to hear.
Not how do you feel about winning yet another CARIFTA championships? But why did we only come home with 59 medals?
CUNNINGHAM PREPARED
Manager of the team, Dwight Cunningham, came prepared to answer just such a question and told The Gleaner: "The major part of that (lukewarm performance), has to do with the Boys' and Girls' Championships. The athletes just came off four gruelling days of championships and they didn't have sufficient time to recover.
"So, they went into competition three days later. A lot of them were carrying little niggles (injuries) and things like that so it wasn't sufficient time to recover it took its toll on the athletes and they were a bit flat," he said.
Bearing in mind the difficulties of running in two major events so close to each other, Cunningham was more than satisfied with the team's performance and heralded them as heroes but pointed out that the rest of the Caribbean did well.
"I thought the majority of the athletes showed great courage. A lot of them had injuries and they went out there and did what they had to do and yet we must also recognise that countries like Trinidad and Bahamas also stepped up," he said.
FRESHER ATHLETES
"They have athletes in colleges who they took back to the meet to compete and they were much fresher than our athletes and they performed well," Cunningham.
Cunningham's statements at the airport were revealing and explained much, but it also begged the question as to whether or not the rest of the Caribbean is catching up?
"There have been tremendous improvements if you look at the Caribbean all around. But if you look at our performances you'll realise that we never performed to our full potential," Cunningham said.
"When you look at Alain Bailey and his performance and the Boys' Championships. At CARIFTA he never came anywhere close to that and so too a number of athletes. So our under- performance really accentuated the improvement of the rest of the Caribbean," he said.
