The CARIFTA Games ended just over a week ago in the Bahamas, the CARIFTA Games is an annual athletics competition founded by the Caribbean Free Trade Association (CARIFTA).
The games was first held in 1972, Austin Sealy, the then president of the Amateur Athletic Association of Barbados, inaugurated the CARIFTA Games with Bermuda and others to mark the transition from the Caribbean Free Trade Association (CARIFTA) to the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).
The Bermuda Track and Field Association in 1972 planned to travel to Jamaica to compete, but a call from the Barbados Track and Field Association to encourage them to go to Barbados was then discussed and from their Bermuda officials including Earl Hart decided to travel to help form the games.
CARIFTA was meant to enhance relations between the English-speaking countries of the Caribbean after the dissolution of the West Indies Federation, but the CARIFTA Games took that idea a step further, including the French and Dutch Antilles in an annual junior track and field championship meet.
Bermuda has won a total of 97 medals in the games that include 22 Gold, 35 Silver and 40 Bronze over the years of competition.
www.islandstats.com got a chance to speak with Sealy and Hart, two of the founding members of the CARIFTA Games to talk about how the games got started and many other things that have taken place over the 42 years.
