SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (CMC):

ENGLISH-SPEAKING Carib-bean World Champions Bert Cameron and Troy Kemp are among 23 to be inducted into track and field's Central American and Caribbean (CAC) Hall of Fame.

Bahamian Kemp won the men's high jump gold in Gothenburg in 1995 and Jamaican Cameron landed the men's 400m at the first IAAF World Championship in Helsinki in 1983. Six outstanding Jamaicans are being inducted in this latest batch, headed by Cameron, who won Olympic 1600-metre relay silver in 1988.

Other Jamaicans

Other Jamaicans joining the elite list are George Kerr, a bronze medal winner in the 1600-metre relay and 800 at the Rome Olympics in 1960, and Juliet Cuthbert, a double-silver medallist - over 100 and 200 metres - at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.

Cuthbert also helped Jamaica win sprint relay gold at the Tokyo World Championship in 1991. Olympic silver medal winners Ray Stewart (100m) and Winthrop Graham (400m hurdles) and Devon Morris, who was World Indoor 400m champion in Spain in 1991.

Sprinter Davis-Thompson, who was elected a member of IAAF Council at the IAAF Congress in Osaka, in August 2007, and Kemp, are the first Bahamians for the CAC Hall of Fame.

Cuban Olympic champions Javier Sotomayor (high jump) and Maritza Marten (discus) will also be inducted.

Other outstanding names from the Bahamas, Jamaica, Cuba, Panama and Trinidad and Tobago will be inducted into the Central American and Caribbean (CAC) Hall of Fame in recognition of their outstanding careers and their contribution to track and field in the region.

Other athletic greats

The group includes 20 World and Olympic medallists, from Pana-manian sprinter Lloyd LaBeach, winner of two bronze medals at the 1948 London Olympics, to Baha-mian Pauline Davis-Thompson, who is about to be elevated to the Sydney Olympic 200-metre cham-pion following the stripping of Marion Jones for drug use.

Davis-Thompson was also part of the Bahamian team that won Olympic sprint relay gold in Sydney.

The Hall of Fame initiative started in 2003 with two separate induction ceremonies in Jamaica and Cuba, in order to acknowledge the region's athletic greats.

Joining Davis-Thompson and Kemp as inductees from the Bahamas will be Frank Rutherford, who won Olympic triple jump bronze at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.

Ian Morris is one of two Trinidad and Tobago athletes being inducted. Morris, who won silver at the World Indoor Championship in Budapest in 1989, is the fastest ever English-speaking Caribbean quarter-miler at 44.21 seconds. He and 1964 Olympic 4x400m bronze medallist Edwin Skinner are the two T&T athletes on the list.

The venue and date for the induction ceremonies will be an-nounced soon.