It’s the Bahamas again atop the podium at the 36th Central American and Caribbean Bodybuilding and Fitness Championships that was held on Saturday night. Taking three individual championships and a myriad of top 5 finishes, the home team ended with 204 points to defeat Barbados 151. Venezuela and Trinidad rounded out the top 4 with 144 and 89 points respectively. This is Bahamas’ 8th win in 16 appearances.

Barbados showed grit and determination to come out 3-1 winners over hosts St. Kitts-Nevis in the curtain closer for Group D. This placed Barbados firmly on top of the group allowing both themselves and St. Kitts to go through to the next round of the Digicel Caribbean Championships. Although dominated in the first half by excellent ground play by the Kittitians, the Bajans rallied back from a goal down to win the game.

It’s begun. In the opening round of the Digicel Caribbean Championships, St. Kitts-Nevis took full advantage of home turf and delivered a resounding 4-0 thrashing of the visiting BVI team. By all accounts the Kittitians could have delivered a more emphatic victory but did not convert on all the chances thanks in no small part to valiant work between the sticks by BVI goalkeep Montgomery Butler. The starting eleven were as follows:

St. Kitts: 1. Delroy Delaney, 14. Zevon Archibald (11. Stephen Clarke min 59), 2. Keithroy Richards, 16. Javin Matthew (4.Elvado Mitchum min 67), 10. Jason Lake, 7. George Issac, 13. Thrizen Leader, 9. Jevon Francis, 6. Irandy Byron, 15. Orlando Mitchum (17. Errol O’Loughlin min 79), 18. Shashi Isaac.

Subs: 01. Delroy Delaney- GK, 5. Rovin Wigley, 3. Earl Jones.

British Virgin Islands: 19. Venton James, 17. Ranelie Cain, 10. Lyndon Remy, 15. Andy Davis (8. Dwayne Ross min 79), 7. Raul Ettienne (12.Randy Johm min 36), 9. Fitzroy Daley (16. Rohan Lennon min 55), 18. Noel Issacs, 5. Elvis Williams, 14. Mervin Dainty, 11. Nano Ottley, 1. Montgomery Butler.

Subs: 13. Raymond Cummings, 4. Alex Green, 22. Henif James GK, 2. Jevorne Demming.

Goal scorers: George Isaac (15th minute), Zevon Archibald (31st minute), Venton James (own goal - 52nd minute),  Jevon Francis (77th minute)

Janet Guy, Dacia Barnes and C Lloyd Walker are scheduled to be in Barbados today for a series of sessions to assist Barbados’ netball coaching talent. The clinics, according to IFNA Regional Director Octavia Gibson, is aimed at rectifying the gap between the performance of the top four countries, namely Australia, New Zealand, England and Jamaica, and the rest of the world. Meanwhile the Jamaica Netball Association willl be staging its own advanced coaching course this Saturday at the National Stadium Hospitality Room.

They are now in the dock. Xavier Marshall, Windies opening batsman, and Tonito Willett from the Leeward Islands have tested positive for banned substances. They were among 32 players named in a provisional Stanford Superstars squad set to face England on November 1. That will not be the case now as Donald Peters, the chief executive of the West Indies Cricket Board has laid out in no uncertain terms that

“The WICB has a zero tolerance policy on drugs”

The drug tests on the Stanford Superstars were carried out by the Caribbean Regional Anti Doping Organization.

Jess Jattan and Terrence David are the new President’s Cup Golf Tournament. The tournament was played on September 6 and 7 and had a grand total of thirty teams participating, but it was the pair of Jattan and David who shot an impressive 67 points in the two day tournament. Close finishers were Mitchum Jasper and Andrew Renee who shot 65 to finish second and Brendon Gray and Fitz Neptune who finished third with 63 points.

He was Trinidad’s premier cyclist from 1959 to 1967 and was bestowed the First Citizen’s Sports Foundation honour recently. Trinidad and Tobago bids farewell to one of their premier sportsmen as Fitzroy “Thunder Thighs” Hoyte passed away last Wednesday. In all Hoyte won more than 100 local and 30 international events. The Caribbean family is truly saddened by the passing of this outstanding athlete.

It has been a bad stint for Caribbean teams the last couple of days within CONCACAF, Trinidad registered a 3-0 loss to the United States in Chicago. With just 18 minutes already gone in the contest, Trinidad was down 2-0 thanks to goals from Michael Bradley and Clint Dempsey. Brian Ching added the third in the 57th minute. Trinidad is now in third place of Group One behind Guatemala on just goal difference.

Jamaica went down to Honduras in an away match which saw them losing by a margin of 2-0. As a result the team’s coach was fired this morning by the President of the Jamaica Football Federation Captain Horace Burrell. Jamaica has lost it’s last two away matches and now resides at the bottom of the CONCACAF group in which they reside along with Mexico, Honduras, and Canada.

It was a thorough and decisive victory for the Mexican team. 3-0 is what the scoreboard read after their encounter with the Jamaican Reggae Boyz at the the Azteca. Although the Boyz can take solace in the fact that this has been their smallest margin of defeat at the Azteca, the clinic that the Mexicans put on, might be somewhat disheartening. With Ian Goodison nursing an ankle injury out of it, they might actually be feeling somewhat vulnerable as they have yet to play Honduras in their away match. All in all, the campaign still is drawing many parallels to the previous successful campaign, with the Boyz still remaining in contention to book a spot out of the “Group of Death”.