Clare envisions ‘foreign invasion’ at local meets
JAMAICA could see a huge boom in the number of foreign-based individuals and groups participating in future local developmental athletics meets.
“For many… they’re recognising that this (Jamaica) is the mecca, this is where they really need to be to test their mettle,” United States-based lawyer and founder of Team Bickle Jamaica, Irwine Clare, told the Sunday Observer.
Clare’s group, Team Bickle USA, won the Girls 4X800m and 4X400m Open events at last weekend’s Gibson Relays at the National Stadium.
It was an improvement from the team which finished third in both events last year.
“We found that when we went back, many athletes wanted to be part of what we started last year,” Clare explained to the Sunday Observer of what made the difference.
Team Bickle USA was formed from an amalgamation of several high school athletes from across the Tri-state area of New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania in the United States.
The team included two athletes born and raised in the United States of 100 per cent Jamaican parentage — Claudia and Phyllis Francis. Both were part of the winning relay teams.
“These are athletes who wanted to be here, so we provided the platform for them to be here,” Clare stated.
Interest in what makes Jamaica’s track and field tick has escalated since the country’s record medal haul at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and last year’s World Championships in Berlin.
Clare said it is a passion of his to see the annual relays developed at a level commensurate with that of the Penn Relay Carnival in Philadelphia, which attracts not only athletes from across the USA, but Jamaica, the Caribbean and other parts of the world.
“We can do that by making sure other teams compete here in the same way we send teams to the United States. We must have teams from the United States coming here and spending some money in our country too,” he said.
This year’s Gibson Relays did just that, with two teams from Canada, as well as from the Cayman Islands and the French-speaking Caribbean island of Martinique competing.
The Canada-based Flying Angels were first in the 4x100m and 4x200m for All-Age and Junior High School Boys, while the Ontario Striders won the 4x200m Girls equivalent. Martinique were fourth in the Class One Boys 4x100m relay.
