The visiting sports journalists for CARIFTA on the whole were impressed with the organisation and presentation of the Games at the Truman Bodden Sports Complex last weekend.

One of them was Sherrylyn Toppin, a photo-journalist with The Nation Publishing who specialises in swimming, netball, athletics and tennis.

She has been covering track CARIFTAs since Martinique in 1999 and has only missed one – 2006 when she returned to education to complete her masters.

“I find that the competition has been good,” Toppin said. “We had about six records in the first two days, but the atmosphere is not as good as other places I’ve been to.

“I find here that people tend to sit in the stands and you have to gee them up as opposed to them doing it from their own excitement.

“Compared to our track at home this is great. Our track is in an absolute mess and it’s amazing that our athletes can qualify and even come here and perform the way they do given the facility we have at home.

“Even though there isn’t a lot of space when you host something this big, yes it is adequate for what happens here in the Cayman Islands, so really it is a very good facility.

“This is my first trip and there haven’t really been many places I’ve seen except the stadium and my hotel. I did go along Seven Mile Beach a few times but in terms of seeing Grand Cayman there really hasn’t been an opportunity for that.

“I find the people are very helpful. It’s almost like being in Barbados. They see you and say ‘good morning’ and have a ready smile.”

Lennox Devonish is also a photo-journalist from Barbados who for the last 15 years has lived in New York and is now freelancing in Barbados. He mainly freelances for the Barbados Nation newspaper.  

This was his first CARIFTA since the Nineties. He was a great example of the benefits of sports tourism as he bought a camera lens from Cathy Church’s for around $1,700.

Devonish said: “I think some of the Barbadian athletes are very disappointing in accordance to how we’re accustomed to seeing them perform. I don’t know what it is, if it’s the Cayman Islands!

“I think there are certain things here I would have changed, like photographers around the long jump.

“When a person is coming down the stretch you have a whole wall of photographers. I think that limits the jumper and they feel they are going to run right into the photographers.

“The organisers need to sit down and work these things out with the photographers. They are just interested in satisfying the sponsors but they need to plan it with photographers.

“If the public relations side is not best worked out for photography so that the millions watching on TV and see reports in newspapers you will not get the best shots.

“Around 10 countries are going to go home without medals. That is very disappointing. Jamaica and the Trinidadians are dominating the podium.

“But what people need to realise is that when Jamaica has its schools championships, the number of people in the stadium (30,000) is more than some of the smallest islands.

“So they have a bigger pool to draw from. My point is don’t be too hard on the smaller countries that didn’t medal. 

“I’ve enjoyed Cayman. This is my first time. Everything is like Barbados, the sun, the sea, the fish.

“There aren’t so many Jamaicans in Barbados though. There are more Jamaicans here than anywhere else in the world!”

So does he dislike Jamaicans? “I’m married to a Jamaican, so what do you think!”