Where have the girls gone?

With the Powerade Barbados Secondary Schools Athletics Championships in full swing, the national meet, which functions as a precursor to the CARIFTA Games, has seen a steady decline in senior female athletes over the years. After four days of competition this past week in the Frank Blackman and Esther Maynard zones, a trend has been visible for all to see – the lack of numbers in the Under-20 female events.

With the new zone format serving to give all schools an opportunity to shine on a level playing field, it also functions as an eliminatory tool ahead of this coming week’s semifinals and finals. With many of the track events having as many as three heats across the board to cater to the number of athletes registered, what has been strikingly clear is that the number of Under-20 female athletes is down with most events being completed in one heat, sometimes not even with a full field.

This is an issue which is already under the microscope of the Athletics Association of Barbados as President Catherine Jordan spoke about it at a recent media conference ahead of the Barbados /Trinidad and Tobago Dual Meet held last weekend.

During the briefing, Jordan said that for some time it was noticed that there were fewer girls succeeding in Track and Field and that the University of the West Indies was commissioned to do a study on the gender issue in the sport.

“Other years in CARIFTA we had three girls in almost every Under-20 event. Last year, sometimes we only had two. We are beginning to see it in Under-18 and that is concerning us and I know that by the time we sit down for our next strategic planning meeting, we going to have to find an answer as to how we can answer the gender issue in Track and Field because we saw it creeping up on us, we started to study it, but we have to look for solutions because we know now that it is becoming a problem,” she said.

With the Trinidad and Tobago Team General Manager Dexter Voisin echoing Jordan’s sentiments, Jordan said that the issue stretched further than at home. “How do you keep the girls? What is it that is happening with girls that they are not staying in the sport after the Under-18? I know that is probably the one thing that Barbadians will pick up on and talk about. But I want to make the point that it is not just a Barbadian thing. It is not a Trinidadian thing. It is a gender issue that we have to discuss.”

Going on to say that there were several plans in the works, Jordan revealed that one of the possible initiatives on the drawing board is the formation of a women’s commission made up of past athletes to interact with young upcoming females through the implementation of programmes.