by JOHN-MARC NUTT
You can feel the energy in the air, the PA Announcer call out “in lane five THE BAHAMAS” the crowd started to lose their collective mind.
Just a day earlier, during a press conference when they asked Shaunae Miller who had a better chance to win a medal she quickly looked at Chris Bown and said “the Golden Knights of course.”
The Golden Knights did have the best chance, but the 4X200 women’s relays team were not that far off from earning a spot on the medal the podium.
The Bahamas got off to a great start keeping up this the teams from the USA, Jamaica, and Nigeria.
Leading up to the second exchange, I was watching and saying we have a chance to get a medal in this event.
Then Anthonique Strachan started to bank around to corner to exchange the baton to Brianne Bethel. It was like seeing a car wreak in slow motion, disaster was coming and there was nothing we could do about it.
I felt sick, just hoping there was a chance we can have a successful exchange. Even though I knew they would be disqualified, seeing them finish the race in second was joy/heartbreaking to watch. It was just painful to know that this was teams Bahamas race to win. No one couldn’t tell me that if that exchange was successful that we would be the ones hearing our national anthem.
Sitting in the press conference room, even though Nigeria and Jamaica were happy, you can see in their face and voice that they knew they got lucky to be in the positions that they were in.
This is a young team, and all I see is potential and hope. We will take our bumps and bruises now, but when the Bahamas decides to have these ladies run the 4X100, the world will have to take notice again that the Bahamas is back.
There will always be growing pains in sports, but i can see this team next year surprising some people in not only the world championships later this year, but Rio 2016.
