In 2020, a minuscule virus, invisible to the human eye, brought a multi-billion-dollar sports industry to a standstill worldwide.
The COVID-19 pandemic caused an outcome that hadn’t been seen in over 100 years — a complete shutdown of sports.
In The Bahamas, local sports were halted from mid-March, gyms and national facilities were closed, training regimens were disrupted and athletes were forced to work out at home.
Athletes suffered a significant blow with lack of sponsorship, lack of training and coaching, little access to dietary supplements and nutrients, and little to no access to facilities.
For team sports, it was pretty much the same thing. Teams stayed home, missing out on key qualifying tournaments and regional and international events.
When the pandemic reached The Bahamas in mid-March, athletes were literally pulled off the track at the Bahamas National High School Track and Field Championships. It has been a disaster ever since with local leagues and events shutting down, leaving thousands of young athletes in the country idle.
Major events, locally, regionally and internationally, were either postponed or canceled altogether – the biggest of which being the Olympic Games, which is now set for next summer.
Up to March, six Bahamians had qualified outright in track and field and a couple of swimmers had achieved “B” cut qualifying times.
Shaunae Miller-Uibo has qualified in the women’s 100, 200 and 400 meters (m); Steven Gardiner in the men’s 200 and 400m; Tynia Gaither in the women’s 100 and 200m; Samson Colebrooke in the men’s 100m; Pedrya Seymour in the women’s 100m hurdles; and Jamal Wilson in the men’s high jump.
Laura Morley and Joanna Evans have achieved “B” cut qualifying times in swimming in the 200m breast and 400m free events, respectively.
It was figured that the extra time would give Bahamians an extra window to qualify, but on the flip side, the qualifying period in a number of disciplines was suspended.
Anthonique Strachan, who actually went under the standard for the women’s 200m twice this year, is one of those athletes affected.
Be that as it may, sports is on its way back — and so is the Olympics.
One of the stories of the year in local sports was the ability of a seven-member bodybuilding and fitness team to bring back four medals — a silver and three bronze — from the 47th Annual Central American and Caribbean (CAC) Bodybuilding and Fitness Championships.
Bahamians proved that the legendary tag placed on sports in the country by a German journalist, “Small Country, Great Athletes”, is fitting.
In addition to the bodybuilding and fitness athletes, the men’s national basketball team defeated Mexico for the first time ever in team competition on the senior side, and came within half of a quarter of doing the same to Puerto Rico.
Jasrado “Jazz” Chisholm ascended to the major leagues, becoming the seventh Bahamian to do so, and flourished while there, turning in a number of highlight reel plays in the field and showing occasional power and batting ability at the plate.
Kristian Robinson, and maybe Lucius Fox as well, are poised to join Chisholm in 2021.
As for Chisholm, he made an appearance in 24 games for the Miami Marlins after getting called up to the big leagues on September 1, starting 11 games at second base and six at shortstop.
Chisholm finished the season hitting .161, going 9-for-56 with two home runs and six RBIs, and helped the Marlins get into the playoffs. He finished the season with eight runs scored, one triple, a double and two stolen bases, and in the season finale against the New York Yankees, he was 2-for-4 with a two-run double and a solo home run.
Defensively, Chisholm was a gem. At just 22, the Bahamian infielder had 25 putouts, 43 assists and just one error in 69 opportunities. He was a part of 13 double plays and had a fielding percentage of 1.000 at second base and .962 at shortstop.
Chisholm’s highlight of the season, defensively, was a running, leaping, over-the-shoulder catch in shallow center field, robbing Tampa Bay Rays’ first baseman Nate Lowe of a hit. The play was so sensational, that it earned the top play spot on ESPN SportsCenter’s Top 10 Plays.
In the playoffs, Chisholm started once at second base for the Marlins and was 1-for-3 at the plate with a walk.
Standouts
Apart from Chisholm, there were quite a few individual performances that stood out in 2020, despite the shortened sports season across the board.
Chavano “Buddy” Hield won the three-point competition over the National Basketball Association’s (NBA) All-Star Weekend, and turned in another strong year, averaging 19.2 points per game and shooting 42.9 percent from the field and 39.4 percent from distance despite being relegated to the bench just over the midway point of the season.
DeAndre Ayton and the Phoenix Suns were the talk of the NBA bubble, going undefeated through eight games and barely missing the play-in game for the playoffs in the Western Conference.
Ayton was a beast in the middle for the Suns last year, increasing his averages from his rookie season from 16.3 points and 10.3 boards per game to 18.2 and 11.5, respectively.
He missed time due to the NBA’s and National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) Drug Policy for testing positive for a banned substance at the beginning of the season, and also because of injury, but picked up where he left off once he returned to the court. The Suns finished 10th in the west while the Kings were 12th.
The country’s best female basketball player, Jonquel Jones, took the year off in the Women’s National Basketball Association’s (WNBA), then watched as her team, the Connecticut Sun, advanced to the WNBA Semifinals where they fell in five games to the Las Vegas Aces. She returned to her Russian team, UMMC Ekaterinburg, and is averaging 20 points and 9.3 rebounds in three games so far this season.
A number of other Bahamian professional basketball players, such as Kadeem
Coleby and Mark St. Fort in Asia, and Zane Knowles, Travis Munnings, Willis Mackey Jr., Dwight Coleby, Jaraun “Kino” Burrows and Dominic Bridgewater in Europe, just to name a few, are making significant contributions for their clubs around the world.
The collegiate basketball scene is alive and kicking as well, with Bahamian Women’s Basketball Head Coach at the University of Mississippi Yolett “Coach Yo” McPhee-McCuin, one of her players Valerie Nesbitt, Sammy Hunter, Radshad Davis, Kai Jones, Charles Bain and Franco Miller Jr., among others, competing for their respective teams.
The Bahamas picked up its first international victory in equestrian riding this year with Anna Camille Vlasov recording three first place finishes at the Jumping du Golfe de St. Tropez HUBSIDE event in St. Tropez, Grimaud, France.
Also, it was the first victory for Equestrian Bahamas at a major equestrian event in Europe since the local governing body for the sport became a member of FEI (International Federation for Equestrian Sports).
Additionally, The Bahamas joined the International School Sports Federation (ISF) and for the first time in history, a junior chess team from The Bahamas took part in the ISF World Schools Championship Online Chess 2020 Tournament.
Bahamian chess player FIDE (International Chess Federation) Woman Candidate Master (WCM) Daijah Johnson made history as she became the first Bahamian to qualify to the finals of any ISF event.
In world track and field, World Champion Gardiner and Olympic Champion Miller-Uibo made the best out of the restrictions and limited training sessions by competing in a number of small meets, with safety and social distancing measures in place, when track and field resumed.
Gardiner went unbeaten in all of his races, set a national record in the 300m, ran a personal best time in the 100m and went sub-20 in the 200m.
Miller-Uibo became just the fourth woman to ever run sub-11 seconds for 100m, sub-22 for 200m and sub-49 for 400m, recording a personal best time of 10.98 seconds at the “Back to the Track” Meet in Clermont, Florida.
She took part in an inspirational 150m virtual race with American Allyson Felix and Switzerland’s Mujinga Kambundji with the trio running from different locations, ran sub-22 in the 200m again, finishing the year as the top ranked sprinter in that discipline, and is world’s No. 2 at the 400m finishing with a modest season’s best time of 50.52 seconds.
As mentioned earlier, Strachan dipped below the Olympic qualifying standard in the women’s 200m twice, but the qualifying period was suspended due to COVID-19.
Like Miller, Felix and Kambundji with their 150m run as a part of the Weltklasse Zürich Inspiration Games, a Wanda Diamond League exhibition event, Bahamian high jumper Jamal Wilson competed in a unique interactive jump session with Gianmarco Tamberi, from Italy, and German Mateusz Przybylko, trying to put some focus on sports and highlighting a return to the track in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
He finished with the third-best jump in the world for 2020, matching a personal best clearance of 2.30m (7’ 6-1/2”) at the T-Bird Flyers Track and Field Classic at the Thomas A. Robinson Stadium, back in January.
The women’s 4x400m may be the new featured relay for The Bahamas on the track with collegiate athletes such as Doneisha Anderson and Megan Moss looking to join Miller-Uibo in the sub-50 second range. Both ran personal best times in a number of their individual events indoors this past season – Anderson in the 200, 300 and 400m; and Moss in the 200 and 400m.
Bright future
The future for Bahamian track and field looks bright.
A number of young athletes who were poised to represent the country at CARIFTA this year didn’t get that opportunity as that regional event was canceled for the first time in history – both swimming and track and field.
In swimming, young stars such as Marvin Johnson, Nigel Forbes, Zaylie-Elizabeth Thompson, Keianna Moss, Lamar Taylor and Davante Carey, had their sights set on strong representation for The Bahamas, looking to lead the country to a fourth straight junior regional title in CARIFTA swimming and sixth in the past seven years.
In water polo, they are the defending champions in the under-16 boys division, and the previous year, they won three gold medals in the under-14 mixed division, the under-16 boys and the under-19 boys division.
In CARIFTA track and field, The Bahamas was once again set to make its mark on the junior regional scene. Moss, Anthaya Charlton, Rhema Otabor, Keyshawn Strachan, Jasmine Knowles, Shaun Miller Jr., Shaunece Miller, Terrence Jones, Jaida Knowles and Curtis Mitchell, among others, were expected to lead The Bahamas’ charge.
Just recently, at the Blue Chip Athletics Throwers Meet, seven Bahamian throwers qualified for the 2021 CARIFTA Games despite having little to no access to gyms and national training facilities.
Otabor, Strachan, Calea Jackson, Tarajh Hudson, Carnitra Mackey, Kamera Strachan and Kaden Cartwright all qualified in the throws.
At 12, Kamera Strachan is too young to attend, but the others are all age-eligible, and all compete for the Blue Chip Athletics Club.
Head coach of that club Corrington Maycock said he expects to have in excess of 10 athletes qualify for CARIFTA next year, which is tentatively set for April 3-5 at the Bermuda National Sports Centre in Hamilton, Bermuda.
The granddaddy of them all, for 2021, is certainly the Olympic Games, postponed to July 23 to August 8, 2021, in Tokyo, Japan. Organizers are convinced that it will occur this time around, postponed for the first time in history in 2020.
Sports had its share of deaths in 2020 as well as noted sportsmen and women in The Bahamas passed away.
We lost Leonard “Boston Blackie” Miller, Anthony “Poker” Huyler, Asa Ferguson, Elizabeth Marion “Betty” Cole, Coach Sherman Smith, Jim “The Swing Doctor” Duncombe and Michael “Scooter” Reid just to name a few.
May their souls rest in peace, and may sports continue to return to normalcy in 2021.
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