Meakins pleased to have made her mark

Despite not being born in Barbados, former national squash champion Karen Meakins is proud to have left a legacy here after making the island her home. Since relocating to Barbados, in 2000 Meakins made her name known locally before going on to become a 15-time national champion.

Speaking to The Barbados Advocate recently, Meakins who is 48, stated that she began playing at the age of 10. Admitting that as a child she tried about 10 different activities in her native town of Dunstable (UK) before she got into squash, she conceded that she was not quite sure why she stuck with the sport as she was not very good at it at first.

She would fall in love and build up a level of skill playing in local tournaments at the junior county level that would see her getting a call up for England’s national squad training. Although she did not make the team, Meakins did make it up to the 21st-ranked player while picking up a rank of 63 in world rankings in the 90s.

Noting that she had been coming to Barbados since she was 13, Meakins revealed that she played here in what would have been the Rockley Open. When an opportunity for her to come and teach squash in Barbados came up, she took a six-month career break, taught for six months and never looked back.

Stating that the transition was not too bad as she had been playing here for years, she said that she has had her best playing days in Barbados.

“Honestly I think I have had the best part of my squash career while I have been here in Barbados. Once I had lived here for two years I was allowed to represent Barbados, so from 2002 I started to play squash for Barbados and I honestly think I have had my best squash since I’ve lived here. By far,” she said.

Scribing her name in the history books as the first woman to oversee a 15-year dynasty at the top of the sport, Meakins held the title from 2001 to 2015.

“When I started, my goal was always to win 10 consecutive national titles and I actually went to 15. So I’m pretty proud of that. There’s a lot of good players now so I’m sure someone will come along and beat it one day. There’s a lot of good young players now.”

Gushing about the up and coming talent, she dropped the names of Meagan Best, and Amanda Haywood, who became the first female player from Barbados to get a scholarship to a United States university, Jada Smith-Padmore and Sumairaa Suleman, and said that it was nice to see so many young women doing so well.

Being here for more than 20 years, Meakins thinks that the fraternity has done a phenomenal job despite having extremely limited facilities.

“We have a massive challenge in Barbados with a lack of facilities. The Barbados Squash Club has three courts and Pleasant Place has one court and that is basically all the courts we have on the island. So it’s always going to be a challenge for a sport to grow with four courts. But I think we have a really good junior programme that has grown really well,” she said, also making mention of the achievements of the island at regional and international competitions.

Having headed the Women’s national team, the junior national team and individual players, Meakins noted that she coached heavily up until two years ago and a double-knee surgery in 2018, but still passing on her knowledge.

Stating that her hopes for the future of the sport included a national squash centre that was open to the public, Meakins said that the aim was to have it able to cater to school programmes and build the numbers.

“There is so much untapped talent out there and a lot of people don’t know about squash because we have so few facilities. So if we could get a national squash centre that’s open to anybody, we could get schools involved, we could get kids involved that don’t necessarily know about it. That would help us grow and I’m sure that would really put us on the world map because already we’ve got some phenomenal squash players in Barbados that are doing amazing things that have never been done before. I’m sure there’s a lot more kids out there who could do the same things if they had the opportunity,” she said. (MP)