by David Harris

Jayden Green captured Barbados’ lone gold medal at the 52nd CARIFTA Games which ended at the Hasely Crawford Stadium, in Mucrapo, Trinidad on Monday night. The 17-year-old student of the Christ Church Foundation School won the Under-20 Boys’ 200 metres at the three -day track and field meeting in 20,93 seconds ahead of Jamaicans Tyreece Foreman (20.95) and Junior Galimore (21.01); Green is the first Barbadian to win the event since Mario Burke in 2015.

The rest of team collected five silver and eight bronze medals with several athletes recording personal best. Barbados won 14 medals at the games, their best performance since the 2016 Games in Grenada where they won 20 medals. 

Calendar lists all the events from May to September 2025

NATIONAL SENIOR GAMES  field events will begin on Saturday, May 31, at Queen’s College, Husbands, St. James, while the road races, involving running, cycling, walking, and skating, will take place on Sunday, June 1, on the Mighty Grynner Highway.  Monday, June 9, will see the culmination of the track events at the Usain Bolt Sports Complex.

by David Harris

After the elections of the Barbados Table Tennis Association (BTTA) last month, only three members of the previous ten-member board were re-elected to leadership positions. 

Julia Morris-Young a former Caribbean junior champion, retained her role as a council member; Carla Browne, who opted not to seek re-election as treasurer, successfully contested for a council member position; and Phillip Hackett remained as secretary having run unopposed. 

Hackett has been a dedicated servant to table tennis for several years and has coached and managed junior and senior national teams at regional and international tournaments since the 1990s. 

He first managed and coached the junior team at a tournament in Puerto Rico in the late 1990s and was appointed manager for the senior team in Columbia in 1999. Hackett was the manager of the senior team at the 2024 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow; on that occasion Barbados placed ninth which the best result the island had experienced at the Games. 

Hackett managed the senior team that participated at the 2023 Pan Am Championships in Chile; and oversaw the team that won a medal at the Caribbean Table Tennis Federation Championships in Guyana.    

“I have been associated with table tennis for about 55 years; it was one of many activities in which the young people at the Calvary Moravian Church, Roebuck Street, Bridgetown, engaged, that is where I learned the sport”, Hackett told Advo Magazine. 

According to Hackett; Barbados have dominated table tennis in the region and can do so again, but the financing of the sport is a major problem.  

“We have been on top of the region before, and we can do it again, but finance is the biggest challenge. The sport is now professional now on a global level; to compete even regionally a high level of specialised training is required and there is a big cost attached to that”, Hackett said. 

The veteran table tennis administrator explained that there were two periods when Barbados achieved significant success in regional table tennis. “Maybe there were two golden eras; Barbados won the Caribbean Championships in 1979 at a time when Robert Earle was probably at the top of his game. Of course, there were other amazing players at that time- these included Ricky Cummins, Anthony Holder, Everton Forde, and Gladston Wharton. Even before them you had players like Rawle Phillips and Trevor Manning. We can move forward a bit to the Robert Roberts era; he won the men’s single titles (in the 1990s) on at least two occasions. Trevor Farley, Abby Clarke and Shawn Bellamy were our key players along with Roberts”. 

“Kibibi Moseley also won multiple singles titles (in the 1990s) and formed a formidable partnership in doubles with Ann Reid. During that era the Championships had grown to include several Spanish speaking countries; many of their players were professionals, or semi-professionals, while most of our players were at home. It was a special achievement to be competitive during that period for quite a few years. We also won singles through Trevor Farley and his younger brother Kevin Farley. Coincidentally, they are now president and vice-president of the BTTA”, he added. 

Hackett identified Tyrese Knight, Maleeq Aimey and Scott Galbraith as young and talented players with a bright future in the sport. 

“Knight has had extensive exposure overseas, one of the highlights of his career so far came when he qualified for the Pan Am Games. Of the junior players young Aimey seems to have a passion for the sport, I hardly ever visited the Table Tennis Centre without seeing him there training; and Galbraith is another promising player. We have a group of talented youngsters that are participating in the 28^th Caribbean Region Table Tennis Federation (CRTTF) Youth Championships which is being held in Barbados at the gymnasium of the Garfield Sobers Sports Complex this week. The challenge will be to give these players the necessary exposure to keep them competitive with other regional youngsters, some of whom have already been exposed to high performance training”, Hackett said.  

He emphasized that the BTTA must find a way to develop a pool of players simultaneously: “We have been at our strongest when we had several players all developing together and playing at a high level. Just to work on one or two players won’t help us to revisit excellent achievements of the past”.         

Hackett said that most his satisfying moment as coach or manager of the national team was in 2000 when Shannon Doughlin (now Dr Shannon Doughlin) won the junior Caribbean title. 

“What also made it special was his attitude and the attitude of the players who were on the team, it was a pleasure working with them. Shannon has remained a humble and respectful person despite all that he has achieved on the table and in his professional career. He is as positive a role model as you could ask for”, Hackett said. 

A teacher for several decades before joining the Media Resource Office of the Ministry of Education; Hackett is also a radio cricket commentator. 

“Apart from table tennis, I enjoy being a cricket commentator local, regional and international matches. Doing commentary at an international event is an awesome experience, it is a heavy responsibility being the eyes of so many people”, Hackett said.