MY LORD, WHAT A MORNING!

November 2000 Table of Contents

MY LORD, WHAT A MORNING!

Thousands of Bahamians woke up early on 30th September - or stayed up all night long - to see the world champion Golden Girls of The Bahamas compete in the finals of the 4 x 100m relay in Sydney. When The Bahamas won the world championship in Seville the US team did not have their Belizean bullet, Marion Jones, in the line up. This time Marion was fit and at the top of her game. Either The Bahamas was going to stamp its authority on the sprinting world or the US was going to exact revenge for a humiliating defeat.

Earlier in the games all three Bahamian 100m female sprinters - Sevatheda Fynes, Chandra Sturrup and Debbie Ferguson - reached the final eight, a tremendous achievement for such a tiny country. As Marion Jones stormed to victory, the Bahamians girls placed 6th, 7th and 8th. It was a disappointing result and some people began to wonder whether more disappointments were ahead.

The nation's spirit was revived in the 200m finals. Marion Jones won but Pauline Davis-Thompson took the silver medal, the first Olympic medal for The Bahamas since Frank Rutherford's Triple Jump bronze in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. It was a magnificent performance for Pauline, who is due to retire from athletics after the games. Her brilliant smile after the race was as radiant as the Bahamian sun.

Then it was Saturday morning and the 4 x 100m finals. The Bahamian girls faced stiff competition not only from the US but China, the Russian Federation, France and perennial rivals Jamaica. Abaco's Sevatheda Fynes was lead-off runner and at the gun she screamed out of the blocks and by the time she handed off to Chandra Sturrup she had made up the stagger on the US team. It had been widely speculated that the Bahamian girls would need a five metre lead at the last exchange to be sure of victory. Sevatheda had given them just that.

Chandra Sturrup maintained the lead on the difficult straightaway run and handed on to curve-running specialist Pauline Davis-Thompson. But coming off the curve for the final exchange it was clear that Jamaica had made up ground. The US team was out of contention but the race was far from over.

There was a somewhat deliberate exchange between Pauline and anchor girl Debbie Ferguson - this was no time to make a mistake! Debbie was immediately in stride with a two metre lead over Merlene Ottey of Jamaica. And two metres it stayed all the way to the finish line, with Marion Jones closing fast to give the US team the bronze medal. The winning time was 41.95 seconds, the fastest in the world this year.

The Golden Girls of The Bahamas were gold again, world and Olympic champions. They had lived up to the enormous expectations of the nation. With Eldece Clarke-Lewis, The Bahamas has five of the top ten women sprinters in the world. On the gold medal podium the girls sang the words to their national anthem, a rare occurrence among athletes. How they must have relished the words "...See how the world marks the manner of your bearing..."

The gold and silver medals put The Bahamas into the top half of the Olympic medals table. What a wonderful accomplishment. What fine ambassadors to the world our Golden Girls were. That Saturday morning, Bahamians throughout the islands were standing tall and proud. My Lord, what a morning!

This Issue Table of Contents - - Previous Issues

Other Abaco Bahamas Links
Home Page (oii.net) - Message Board (AbacoBoard.com) - Latest Happenings (AbacoToday.com)