The recent success of the British Virgin Islands in gaining, a silver medal in the girls medley relay at the 8th IAAF World Junior Championships in Donetsk, Ukraine, is part of the overall developmental plan of the British Virgin Islands Athletics Association (BVIAA).{{more}}

The team of Taylor Hill, Nelda Huggins, Jonel Lacey and Tarika “Tinker Bell” Moses posted a time of 2 minutes 07.40 seconds to cop the British dependency’s first medal at that level.

For president of the BVIAA, Dean Greenaway, the quartet’s medalling at last month’s World Juniors is all part of the development process of the organisation.

“…It has started with the youth programme. What I have noticed and we attempted to correct is that at the Carifta level, many of the countries that win medals at Carifta Games, in many of the other competitions, they go ahead and have persons advance to semi-finals, finals and winning medals at the junior level. Junior Championship, World Youth, World Juniors, Commonwealth Juniors”, Greenaway noted in an interview with SEARCHLIGHT recently.

“… For us, we put a goal of winning a medal within five years ….We currently have [athletes] that are 16 – 17, because I know they would have [been] benchmarked for what we are looking forward to with the development…. As a result, in 2012, we identified all our 10 – 14 who will fall in the youth category of 16 – 17 between 2015 and 2018, so we know all our 16 – 17 between 2013 and 2019,” Greenaway said.

Greenaway advanced that winning medals at the Carifta Games in the past two years helped to fillip the islands’ progress.

“….Last year we won five medals, this year we won eight medals; which is the most that we have ever won and I think those kind of things are only helping with the further development for programmes, because everybody wants to be the next one, and are fighting to be the youth athlete of the year, which is an added incentive,” Greenaway stated.

“We have seen a steady increase in the quality of performances from our athletes. We have between eight and nine under 18 athletes who have run under 60 seconds in the 400 meters, including 12 and 13-year-olds, so what we are seeing with our development is that for a while, we are going to be competitive at the regional level,” Greenaway projected.

The BVIAA president, in listing the achievements, noted the BVI has had finalists in three of the four IAAF World Championships events, with Tahesia Harrigan-Scott being an indoor 60m finalist and medalist in 2008 and a 2010 finalist.

Harrigan-Scott was also a semi-finalist in the IAAF World Outdoor Championships in 2009, while Chantel Malone, in 2010, was an IAAF World Jr. Championships finalist in both the long jump and 400m.(RT)