Don Quarrie (JAM) (© Getty Images)
A total of 15 athletes, physicians, officials and statisticians from Jamaica and Cuba will be the first to be inducted into the Central American and Caribbean Confederation (CACAC) Hall of Fame, in two ceremonies scheduled at the end of November in Kingston and Havana.
Kingston
The Talk of the Town Restaurant at Hotel Pegasus in Kingston will host the first ceremony on 27 November, when seven prestigious track and field figures will enter this exclusive group.
Olympic medallists Grace Jackson, Herb McKenley, Arthur Wint, Donald Quarrie and George Rhoden, as well as physician Herb Elliot and statistician Richard Gordon Ashenheim will the first to enter the Hall of Fame.
McKenley, uniquely contested finals at 100m, 200m and 400m during the 1948 London and 1952 Helsinki Games, coming away with medals in 100m and 400m. He led his country to the 4x400 relay gold and World record (3:03.9) in the Finnish capital with a phenomenal 44.6 split. Rhoden, Wint and Leslie Laing completed the quartet. He became the first man to run under 46 seconds in the one-lap flat race, when clocking 45.9 in Milwaukee (USA), on July 2, 1948.
Wint also won four Olympic medals, claiming the 400-metres gold in London and the 4x400 relay title in Helsinki, as well as the 800-metres silver in both Games.
Rhoden, a 400-metres specialist, won the Helsinki final and owned the world record with 45.8 during five years (1950-1955).
Quarrie gathered four Olympic medals in his long and successful career. He ran only 0.03 seconds slower than USA's Tommie Smith 200-metres World record time of 19.83, when winning the Pan American Games title in Cali, Colombia (1971) in 19.86.
Quarrie claimed the 200 metres Olympic gold and the 100 metres silver in Montreal 1976, plus the 200 bronze in Moscow 1980, and the 4x100 relay silver in Los Angeles 1984.
Grace Jackson, an Olympic 200 metres silver medallist in Seoul 1988, will be the first Jamaican woman inducted in the Hall of Fame.
Havana
Eight Cubans will be the next group to enter the Hall of Fame two days later at the Hotel Nacional in Havana, on 29 November.
The exclusive group includes Olympic medallists Silvia Chivas, Maria Caridad Colon, Enrique Figuerola, Alberto Juantorena, Silvio Leonard and Ana Fidelia Quirot, as well as IAAF technical committee member Jesus Molina, who was the senior CACAC vice-president for 20 consecutive years, and physician Richard Perez, the first CACAC president.
Juantorena won a historic 400-800 metres golden double in Montreal 1976, breaking the World record with a 1:43.50-minute performance in the two-lap race.
With the Juantoren’s double, the Caribbean won the four Olympic titles from 100 to 800 metress in Montreal, including Trinidad and Tobago's Hasely Crawford in 100 and Jamaica's Donald Quarrie in the 200.
Today, Juantorena is the president of the Cuban Athletics Federation, a member of the IAAF Council, vice-president of the Cuban Olympic Committee and the National Institute of Sports.
Colon became the first Latin American woman to clinch an Olympic title when winning the Javelin final in Moscow 1980. She is now part of the IAAF Women's Committee.
In a successful career which lasted more than two decades, Quirot won two world titles at 800 metres (Gothenburg 1995 and Athens 1997), and two Olympic medals (silver in Atlanta 1996 and bronze in Barcelona 1992). She also ranks third with 1:54.44 on the all-time list.
Figuerola won the first Olympic medal for the Island in 16 years, when finishing second in the 100-metres final in Tokyo 1964. He added a silver anchoring in the 4x100 relay final in Mexico City 1968.
Chivas claimed two Olympic bronze medals in Munich (100 and 4x100 meters), breaking the world junior record with 11.18 in the individual race.
Leonard, an Olympic 100-metres silver medallist in Moscow 1980, is the only Spanish-speaking man to have ever ran under 10 seconds for 100m when clocking 9.98 in 1977, only 0.03 seconds off the then world record time (9.95) of USA's James Hines.
"I am very satisfied to materialize this project in order to fill a vacuum in the history of Central American and Caribbean athletics, which has not been acknowledged as it deserves. These athletes have given so much glory to our region and it is now time to highlight their careers for the better of the present and future generations", explained CACAC president Victor Lopez.
Originally postponed
The first athletes to be inducted into the Hall of Fame were scheduled on July 6 in St George's, Grenada, during the Central American and Caribbean Championships.
However, the ceremony was postponed due to logistic and organization problems. Thus, the CACAC executive committee decided to host the first ceremonies in the athletes' own countries so that they could enjoy this recognition on home soil, added Lopez, a IAAF technical committee member and senior coach at the University of Rice in Houston, Texas, where he trains 400-metres hurdlers Andrea Blackett of Barbados, Allison Beckford of Jamaica, Yvonne Harrison and Yamelis Ortiz of Puerto Rico.
Third induction ceremony planned for 2004
A third ceremony is scheduled on April 10, 2004 in Hamilton, Bermuda, where statisticians Bernard Lindley of Trinidad & Tobago and Rey O'Neal of the British Virgin Islands will enter the Hall of Fame.
Outstanding success
The athletes from the Central American and Caribbean Confederation - a total of 30 countries- have won a total of 87 Olympic medals (17 gold, 39 silver and 31 bronze), as well as 101 medals in World outdoor Championships (28 gold, 33 silver and 40 bronze).
Cuba, Jamaica, Mexico, Bahamas and Trinidad and Tobago lead the list of the region's historic performances. CACAC athletes have joined together in the Central American and Caribbean Championships every other year since 1967, as well as the Central American and Caribbean Games every four years since 1926.
In their most recent performance in the Paris World Championships, the region clinched four titles: St. Kitts and Nevis' Kim Collins (100), Mexico's Ana Guevara (400), Dominican Republic's Felix Sanchez (400 hurdles) and Cuba's Yipsi Moreno (Hammer throw).
