Daily Archives: April 23, 2017

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

ALTHOUGH the fans showed their appreciation in cheering them on for their efforts, day one of the IAAF/BTC World Relays did not turn out as expected from Team Bahamas.

But there were much celebration for the two-time defending Golden Baton champions, the United States, who emerged on top of the standings with 22 points, double the tally of their nearest rivals, Australia. Jamaica is in third with eight with Germany, Barbados and Belarus tied for fourth with seven and the Peoples Republic of China and France in eighth, both with seven points as well.

In the first final of the two-day competition, the women's 4x800m, the Americans led from start to finish to take the title in 8min 16.36sec for a seasons best to share the top prize of $50,000 after taking their victory lap.

Belarus had to settle for the silver in 8:20.07 and Australia picked up the bronze in 8:21.08.

After that performance, the Jamaican 4x200m team anchored by Olympic double sprint champion Elaine Thompson got their fans in a frenzy as they celebrated from start to finish in smashing the championship record in a new time of 1min 29.04sec.

The night closed with the mens 4x100m final as Justin Gatlin sped home well ahead of the field in 38.43 seconds. Barbados moved up for the silver in their seasons best of 39.18 and the Peoples Republic of China got the bronze in 39.22.

But it was what happened during the race that mattered the most. Great Britain, the Netherlands and Canada, featuring Olympic star Andre de Grasse, all failed to finish as they experienced the same fate as Jamaica, with former world champion Yohan Blake, on anchor in the heats as they failed to advance to the final.

After falling short of qualifying for the final, the Bahamas held a slight lead going into the final leg of the B final, but on the home stretch, Adrian Griffith missed out on the opportunity to celebrate as he was caught in the closing metres by Trinidad & Tobago and Germany.

Griffith, anchoring the trio of Warren Fraser, Shavez Hart and Cliff Resias, ended up third in a seasons best of 39.18 seconds as Trinidad & Tobago surged to the front for victory in 39.04 chased by Germany in 39.18, a seasons best as well.

The same quartet of Fraser, Hart, Resias and Griffith ran 39.36sec for fourth in their heat and 10th overall. But they had their share of problems as well as the exchange between Hart and Resias was not that smooth and it cost the Bahamas the lead.

Its something that we will have to work on, said Fraser about the teams performance in the B final. We definitely have a lot of work to do if we want to go to London. Fraser was referring to the IAAF World Championships in London, England in August. The top eight teams in both the men's and women's 4x100m and 4x400m automatically qualify.

While the mens 4 x 100m fell short, Olympic gold medallist Shaunae Miller-Uibo ran a superb opening leg and world 400m leader Steven Gardiner an exceptional anchor leg, but it wasnt enough to get the two 4x400m teams into the final and an automatic berth into London.

Miller-Uibo, running in lane seven in the second of three heats, powered past Canadian Carline Muir in the first 200m and gave the rest of the team what seemed like an insurmountable lead.

But that wasnt enough as Anthonique Strachan held on to it on the second leg, but coming into the exchange, the Bahamas dropped into second. The Bahamas continued to lag as veteran Christine Amertil made her way around the track.

On the final exchange to rookie Rashan Brown, the Bahamas eventually faded into fourth coming onto the home stretch. Their time of 3min 34.40sec was good for 11th overall and out of the final.

Despite the fantastic comeback on the anchor leg by Gardiner, which he started fifth, he and the combination of Michael Mathieu, Demetrius Pinder and Andretti Bain ran a seasons best of 3min 05.37sec for third in their heat, but ninth overall as they missed the final spot to get into the final.

The Bahamas mens team will run in lane four in Sundays B final and the womens team will be in lane five in their B final.

In the men's sprint event, The Netherlands went on to secure the win in the heat in 38.71 for the first of two automatic times into the final. The other was the Peoples Republic of China in second in 38.97. The Bahamas, however, was 10th overall and just missed out like the men and women 4 x 400m in qualifying for the final and a berth into the World Championships at home.

But both the Bahamas men and women 4x400m teams will get a chance to redeem themselves when they compete in the B finals on Sunday.

The championships will conclude on Sunday starting at 7.35pm with the preliminaries of the mens 4x200m and ending with the introduction of the much anticipated mixed 4 x 400m (with two men and two women).

Excerpt from:

Bahamas Miss Out On Finals At Iaaf World Relays - Bahamas Tribune

22 APR 2017 Report Nassau, The Bahamas

No surprises emerged from a competitive opening round, with defending champions USA, and perennial powers Jamaica and Poland looking the strongest ahead of tomorrow evening's final.

After running close with Australia over the opening two laps in heat one, Quanera Hayes, currently the world leader in the 400m, took command for the US quartet with a 50.73 split, the second fastest of the round. That allowed Natasha Hastings to come home on cruise control to seal the 3:29.27 win, the fastest of the three heats.

Stringing together a consistent series of 52-second legs, Australia finished a strong runner-up in 3:30.31 to also advance.

The second heat brought the crowd to life as Shaunae Miller-Uibo, the host country's biggest sporting star, led the Bahamian quartet onto the track -- and again several minutes later when she was formally introduced, and again a minute after that when the Olympic champion led off for the hosts.

Running in lane seven, Miller-Uibo made up the stagger on Canadian Carline Muir after 250 metres, giving her squad a three-stride lead after an impressive 50.25 leg, the fastest of the evening. They held their lead through legs two and three but the pressure was too much for anchor Rashan Brown, who eventually faded to fourth and out of contention for a spot in the final.

The race for the win came down to Great Britain and Nigeria with Margaret Bamgbose out-dueling Briton Kelly Massey over the waning stages to take the victory in 3:31.97. The British squad were next in 3:33.00 to move on as well.

Poland produced the most entertaining victory of the round, battling with Jamaica leg-for-leg, with anchor Justyna Swiety even tossing in an impressive come-from-behind flourish to overtake Anneisha McLaughlin-Whilby over the final 40 metres. Poland clocked 3:29.42 and Jamaica 3:29.93 to easily claim their spots in the final.

Botswana was next in 3:31.61 with Germany fourth in 3:34.34 to take the last two lanes in the final.

Bob Ramsak for the IAAF

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Women's 4x400m heats - IAAF/BTC World Relays Bahamas 2017 - International Association of Athletics Federations

This article originally appeared in the July 2011 issue of Architectural Digest.

While out on an evening stroll during a visit to Lyford Cay, Bahamas, a few summers ago, John Knott and John Fondas scoped out a modest gabled cottage that a friend had suggested they see. The single-story house, near the ocean and painted the cotton-candy Nassau-pink typical of dwellings in this celebrated resort community on the island of New Providence, was surrounded by dense thickets of areca palms and Norfolk pines. A shady terrace in the back overlooked the rolling greens of Lyford Cay's golf course. It was a quiet and magical setting on what seemed like the edge of a jungle, recalls Knott, owner and creative director of the venerable fabric and wallpaper firms Quadrille, China Seas, and Alan Campbell. He and Fondas, Quadrille's marketing director, tiptoed around the vine-covered house, peered through its windows, and decided to buy it on the spotnever even having set foot inside. The landscape and views really did it, explains Knott. We aren't golfersit's purely visual. Somehow, the sea of green brings calm.

The pair soon discovered the house had a pedigree and good bones as well as charm. It was built in the early 1960s by British developer and racehorse aficionado Sir Gerald Glover and his wife in the Caribbean style popularized by Robertson Happy Ward, architect of such legendary escapes as the Cotton Bay Club in nearby Eleuthera, the Sandy Lane hotel in Barbados, and Bunny and Paul Mellon's home at Antigua's Mill Reef Club (which Ward cofounded in the late '40s). Rather ambitiously christened Pytchley Lodge after the village of Pytchley, England, where Glover was a member of the hunt, the cottage was laid out like a Georgian manor house in miniature: A central volume with a hipped roof contains the entrance hall, living room, and terrace, and wings to either side hold a dining room and two bedrooms. It had been altered over the decades, but not irrevocably so; the new owners stepped in to remove incongruous additionsincluding '70s track lighting and a screened porch that blocked their view of the 13th greenand returned the house to its original appearance. When they were done, only concrete walls and floors paved with sandy-color Cuban tiles remained.

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In Lyford Cay, Bahamas, textile impresario John Knott and his partner, John Fondas, worked on their island getaway with designer Andrew Raquet. Fabrics by Alan Campbell and China Seas add vivid accents to the living room; the desk is vintage Armani/Casa.

Though hardly decorating novices, Knott and Fondas brought aboard New York interior designer Andrew Raquet to help them take the next step. Everyone needs a referee, jokes Bahamian-bred Fondas, who owns the Lyford Cay home-furnishings shop Bamboo-Bamboo. Knott and Fondas wanted a departure from their other residencesan antiques-filled apartment on Manhattan's Upper East Side and an 1839 Greek Revival home in Columbia County, New Yorkand naturally they wanted to dip into the fabric and wallpaper archives of Knott's companies, where they found a few tropical-hued patterns that looked appropriately resorty and befitting a '60s beach cottage, Fondas says.

While respectful of the past, Raquet and his clients felt no compunctions about tweaking certain traditions. The Bahamas are full of blue-and-white rooms, lots of Mark Hampton, Raquet observes. We wanted to do something different. And so they found themselves updating archival prints, recoloring them in sometimes eyebrow-raising palettes, to great effect. In the master bedroom, for instance, Raquet cleverly took an Alan Campbell floral fabric called Potalla, originally produced in muted blues, and had it recast as a wallpaperwith chalk-white flowers and leaves against a vibrant French-blue ground. The reimagined pattern lends the entire room a Matissean insouciance. The designer also reconceived a green Alan Campbell fern-motif fabric in a rich cinnamon-brown for a bolder, more modern look; it now generates a warm glow against woven-straw-covered walls and faux-bamboo screens in the graciously proportioned living room. The wall covering and the screens, Raquet acknowledges, are both classic Billy Baldwin decorating signatures that reflect the traditional side of Lyford Cay, where the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Stavros Niarchos, and Sean Connery have all been habitus (Connery still is).

The furnishings in the cottage hew to this more old-school style. American antiques from dealers in Hudson, New York, near the pair's country house, mingle with Empire mahogany pieces. And Fondas's collections19th-century shell trees and sailors' valentines, and portrait miniatures dating from the 18th century through the 1920sadd another layer while speaking to the island's storied past.

The result of the trio's witty decorating? A lively little house that's nothing short of a pink paradise, deliciously caught between seas of blue and green.

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See How a Renovated Cottage in the Bahamas Is Transformed Into the Ultimate Vacation Home - Architectural Digest

Trinidad Guardian

Bahamas starts payouts to Clico policyholders Monday Trinidad Guardian NASSAU Starting on Monday, Clico policyholders in the Bahamas are set to receive long overdue payments. After failing to deliver monies as promised back in January, the Government issued a statement on Tuesday assuring that qualified policyholders ... and more »

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Bahamas starts payouts to Clico policyholders Monday - Trinidad Guardian

Three sprinters two University of Houston students and an alumnus have been invited to the IAAF World Relays to represent their countries on the track. | Ajani Stewart/The Cougar

The chance to run on the worlds stage and bring glory to their country: That is what awaits two current athletes on the Cougar track & field team and one graduate who has remained on campus to train with the Olympic coaching staff.

Sophomore sprinter Mario Burke, freshman sprinter Brianne Bethel and Class of 2016 Cougar LeShon Collins have been invited to run in the 4x100m relays for their respective nations at the International Association of Athletics FederationsWorld Relays in Nassau, Bahamas.

The meet is a precursor to the IAAF World Championships in London. The top eight times in the 4x100m and 4x200m relays automatically qualify for the World Championships this August.

I think (making top eight)would be an amazing accomplishment because, in my opinion, thats one of the easiest qualifications you can have for the World Championships, said assistant coach Debbie Ferguson-McKenzie. All you have to be is the top eight, and youre in. It doesnt get any easier than that.

For Burke, an international student from Barbados, his desire to qualify for the World Championships has been public. After finishing third in the 100m at the U20 World Championships this summer, Burke put on record that he wanted to get to London.

He is well on his way to being one of the top three athletes in his country and qualifying individually for the World Championships in addition to being a member of the relay team.

Assistant coach Carl Lewis said that Burke would have gone to the Rio Olympics last summer if he had not held him back, citing the fact he was only 19 years old.

In the meantime, Burke made a trip to the NCAA Indoor Championships, ran on a 4x400m relay team that set the school record and ran on a 4x100m team that has the second-fastest time in the country.

After spending the last two summers representing his country in Houston, Burke is on pace to do so again.

(Going to the relays is) a very huge confidence booster because I get to run against guys I used to watch on my television, Burke said. I feel really good because Ive been progressing in this program and its given me a lot of opportunities.

For freshman Brianne Bethel, the relays in Nassau stand for more than just a chance to represent her country. They are also a chance to run on her home track while wearing the black, yellow and aquamarine of the Bahamas.

I feel honored, Bethel said. I appreciate that they trust me enough to be on the team no matter how young I am. They have faith in me, and I have faith in myself as well. I just want to go there and represent my country as best I can and bring home a medal.

Bethel has been a key part of the freshman class that helped propel the women to a top three conference finish.

Her success has helped Bethel earn her way onto the Bahamas relay team, something her coach Debbie Ferguson-McKenzie, an Olympic gold medalist for the Bahamas, knows from firsthand experience.

Ferguson-McKenzie ran with Bethel at the 2015 relays. She and the rest of the coaching staff said they knew Bethel has the talent to make this team. Now, she just has to perform.

You have a lot of kids who dont have that opportunity, Ferguson-McKenzi said. I just want her to not take it for granted and to make the most of it.

2016 graduate LeShon Collins was a force during his time for the Cougars. Qualifying for nationals in the 60, 100, 200 and 4x100m relays, he did anything and everything in the sprints. Now as a pro, he has remained at Houston as a member of assistant coach Carl Lewis Team Perfect Method.

In his first year as a professional, Collins placed second in the 60m at the USATF Indoor Championships. He finished second behind last years national champion, Ronnie Baker.

Collins performance at the championships is what earned him a call up to the relay team. There, he will be joined by Baker, Olympic gold medalist Justin Gatlin and defending World Relays champion Mike Rodgers.

To see two kids that are at UH going to the World Relays representing us internationally, and then one athlete that has gone on and is representing the United States post-collegiately, it (realizes) our vision, Lewis said. So all these young recruits that come to us that want to go to the Olympics, were actually physically showing them the path. You can do it in school while youre here, and you can do it post-collegiately.

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Tags: Brianne Bethel, IAAF World Relays, Leshon Collins, Mario Burke, Olympics

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Sprinters head to Bahamas with world championship goals - The Daily Cougar

What has been described as The Bahamas governments latest attack on local NGOs has been denounced as reckless, dangerous and a clear sign of how desperate the ruling Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) party has become.

Over the last year, the PLP has steadily escalated its assault on Save The Bays (STB), after the noted environmental group took legal action against the partys major funder, developer Peter Nygard. As unrest grew over its mismanagement of the economy, lack of transparency and increasingly authoritarian behaviour, the party also began to attack social commentators, bloggers and protest organizers.

Now, on the eve of an election, an extremely unpopular government is frantic to appease Nygard, presumably to gain access to campaign funding, so they have taken the reckless, extremely dangerous decision to officially accuse us of being terrorists, said STB legal director, Fred Smith, QC.

Worst of all, in an effort to disguise their true intentions, they have leveled the same accusation at scores of other NGOs many of which have never locked horns with the government.

He was referring to the fact that on Friday, March 31, STB received a letter from the Registrar of Companies demanding that the NGO turn over its financial records in accordance with the section of the law regarding suspected funding for terrorism.

STB has since filed a constitutional challenge alleging a violation the groups right to privacy. In response, the Registrar claimed that the move was a routine request and had been issued to more than 100 NGOs.

Smith stressed that STB and any other group that chooses to resist this demand cannot be accused of unreasonably withholding information or rejecting a reasonable request.

There is nothing routine or reasonable about this, Smith said. The fact of the matter is, the Registrar specifically requested the information under the Companies (Non-Profit Organization) Regulations, 2014, Article 13(2), which only requires for the provision of such information to assess the extent to which the registered non-profit organization is being used to assist terrorist financing.

The government has basically announced that they suspect the entire NGO community of funding terrorism, without presenting a single shred of evidence. This wild and dangerous accusation represents a fundamental violation of due process. What happened to being innocent until proven guilty?

According to Smith, other NGOs have been recklessly maligned by this request tarred with the same brush simply in an attempt cover up the PLPs attack on STB and a handful of other groups which have sought to hold the government accountable.

We are not in the slightest convinced the government even wants our financial records; the point of this whole exercise is to tarnish our names and reputations by painting us as terrorists in an effort to intimidate us in to silence, he said.

The pattern is clear first, they unlawfully accessed STBs emails and tried to paint us as seditionists. That backfired with the Supreme Courts fining a Cabinet minister $150,000 for violating our privacy.

Then, agents of the state colluded with individuals in the Nygard camp to threaten our lives and safety, but that also blew up in their face, with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) issuing official precautionary measures for members of STB and ordering the government to ensure our safety.

The PLP is now clearly at the end of its rope and senior members have become dangerously unhinged, actually accusing respected members of civil society of terrorism as happens in the worst and most brutal tin-pot dictatorships around the world.

He said STB has launched judicial review proceedings over the attorney generals decision to make the bogus accusation and, in doing so, hopes to lay bare the unholy alliance between the PLP and certain developers, once and for all.

Aside from being an unconstitutional breach of freedom of expression the Registrars demand is a clear attempt to intimidate and oppress STB and others into silence, as the groups challenges to unregulated development have upset the governing partys wealthy foreign funders in particular Peter Nygard.

Smith went on to accuse the PLP of placing the country on the road to failed state status over the past five years.

He said the public should be alarmed by the lengths the party is willing to go to neutralize perceived opponents, as paranoid leaders can target anyone and everyone unpredictably. Meanwhile, he said the country is being severely embarrassed on the international stage.

All Bahamians should be extremely concerned. If they can accuse us with a straight face of something so preposterous as terrorism, literally anyone could be next, he said.

The idea that STBs esteemed international board of directors including individuals such as former US Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady and renowned environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are secretly e.g. members of ISIS is patently ridiculous, laughable if it were not such a serious accusation! Yet it will have a critical and lasting effect on our international relations. That the PLP would stoop to this level, just to win an election, is shameful, unpatriotic and should be contemned by all right thinking Bahamians.

Smith urged Bahamians to see the attacks on STB and other NGOs in the wider context of a wide scale anti-democratic trend under the PLP.

For five long years, the party has failed to deliver on its promise to pass and enact a progressive Freedom of Information Act; meanwhile under the cover of night, they brought forward the notorious Spy Bill and were seeking to force it through Parliament without the public having any say.

In a nutshell, what this means is that while the citizenry are being denied their right to transparency and accountability, the government is seeking to give itself the power to tap your phone, hack your emails, break into your home and install cameras and listening devices.

Whats more, the Spy Bill would allow them to target individuals for perceived violations of public morality and public health. Literally anyone can be made to fit this description and you can guarantee that political opponents and anyone who has questioned the government will be the first to have their privacy violated.

This is the same government that accepted riot gear, armored cars and tear gas grenades from the Chinese government, the only possible intent being to use this brutal equipment on their own population. And, they have put military personnel on the streets of the capital with the excuse that they are needed to help in the fight against crime. The PLP are following a well established road map to repressive dictatorship through the threat of force and a sinister surveillance culture designed to intimidate anyone who would seek to exercise their freedom of expression.

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A frantic Bahamas government comes unhinged, says environmental group - Antigua Observer