CARTAGENA, Colombia—It was long after the deadline to register the delegation to participate in the 20th Central American and Caribbean Games that wraps up in Cartagena, Colombia on Sunday, something in side told BVI Amateur Athletic Association president Ephraim Penn he should attend the games. He only became an accredited member of the delegation last Wednesday.
A week later, he stood in the stands amazed by sprinter Tahesia Harrigan’s debut performance that brought the territory its second gold medal in its 24 year history of participation in the games. The BVI, the smallest country in the CAC Games region, joined Cuba as the only two countries that had the men’s 100 meter champion in the last games and their female sprinter won the event in the next games.
“I am just a little speechless right now. It’s just an amazing feat,” Penn reflected long after the competition ended. “The margin of victory was just total dominance.”
Penn said from the performances of the junior athletes who have carried the torch to Harrigan’s domineering triumph, it sits well for the development of the sport in the territory, as a new athletic facility is being developed.
“Having Tahesia and Dion (Crabbe) in the 100 meter finals here and Keita Cline in the Long Jump, sets BVI track and field on another level and Tahesia has just taken it to another level again,” he said. “I made sacrifices to get here, and it just paid off with this amazing accomplishment.”
Head coach Dag Samuels who has worked with Harrigan and whom she said kept her sanity during the Commonwealth Games in March where she placed fifth, said she ran an excellent race. “Of course I’m very pleased. This is the second successive games in which we have won a gold medal in the 100 meters and she had a fantastic performance,” he said. “She has put in some very hard work and you cannot expect anything but the best from what she has been able to do.”
Over the last five years, the Bahamas’ Sydney Cartwright who represented his country at the CAC Games in the decathlon has been Harrigan’s coach. He coached her at the University of Minnesota and she transferred to the University of Alabama, when got a job there as a Tide assistant. Cartwright said she has come a long way from the little girl to the women she has become. “But, the more important thing is to see how she has grown mentally, believing that belongs in a certain atmosphere with elite people and how she truly believes that she can run with these people,” he noted. “When athletes, believe they belong with such elite groups, they are well on their way and she’s like that currently.”
