The Anguilla Commonwealth Games today announced that it will be sending a team of 12 athletes to represent Anguilla in the XXI Commonwealth Games, to be held in the Gold Coast, Australia, from the 5 – 15 April, 2018. Athletes from across 70 Commonwealth nations will compete in 23 different sports at this event.
The Commonwealth Games is a sporting event that occurs every 4 years and can take place in any of the 70 Commonwealth countries or territories around the world.
Team Anguilla is comprised of 3 female and 2 male track and field athletes, 2 male boxers and 5 male cyclists’.
Due to the destruction of the sports facilities on the island by Hurricane Irma, which took place in September, 2017, it was necessary for the Anguilla Commonwealth Games Association (ACGA) to fund training overseas for most of the athletes, to allow them a fighting chance in what is a very professional competitive sporting event.
Female sprinter T-Kailah Richardson, who will be competing in the 200m, is in Tallahassee, USA, at the moment training under the watchful eye of Wilma Proctor; from there she will travel on to the Games in the Gold Coast on Saturday, 31 March, 2018.
Boxers, Curlun Richardson and Kenwal Hodge are now in training in Toco, Trinidad, with the Trinidad and Tobago National Boxing Team, and other boxing teams from around the Caribbean. They will return to Anguilla in March.
The boxing team will leave Anguilla on Friday, 30 March, 2018, to attend the Gold Coast Games, accompanied by 200m sprinter Saymon Rijo Morris, (who spent 3 weeks in December 2017, at a training camp in Jamaica) and team official Lorna Rogers and coaches Alexis Ryan and Calvin Carty.
The cycling team will be participating in regional competitions, as the funds will allow, in Guadeloupe and Martinique up until they leave Anguilla for the Games on the 23 March. They will be accompanied by coach, Derick Carty and Junie Fleming, an official of the Cycling Association. An extra week of training is also planned to allow the cyclist time to acclimatise in the Gold Coast before the competition begins.
Anguillian track and field Athletes Mauriel Carty, Artesha Richardson and Rechelle Meade, who are studying in the USA on athletic scholarships, will also form part of Team Anguilla at the Games.
The complete team of athletes is as follows:
Accompanying the team will also be board members of the ACGA: Kenn Banks – President, Cardigan Connor – Vice President/Chef de Mission, Althea Hodge – Secretary General and Rollins Richardson – Ex Officio/General Team Manager.
The President of the ACGA, Kenn Banks, said “the team is a very youthful one. I am pleased to see that the three National Associations have included in their selection, several athletes who are attending the Games for the first time.” He congratulated the athletes and encouraged them to make Anguilla proud, both on and off the field of play, and to take advantage of what will be for many of them an opportunity of a lifetime.
