The Dominica team faced great difficulty at the Carifta games in St. Kitts after arriving on the island on April 1 to learn that the village, to host the athletes, was not yet opened.
A highly placed source told DNO that upon the team’s arrival they were given the option to stay in two apartments.
However, the athletes decided to stick together in order to get something to eat and because the bus driver would not wait on them.
That night the team stayed at a three-room apartment in the hope that on the opening of the village, they would all be comfortable at the hotel, the Marriott Hotel, where they were expected to stay.
However, the next day the team was told that only accreditation was being done at the Marriott and they would be staying at another hotel, the Ocean’s Edge.
After accreditation was completed, the team then learnt that they would be returning to the apartment they stayed in the night before and not Ocean’s Edge.
According to the source, the team refused and they were offered another house with four bedrooms: three of which had one double bed and the next three, single beds.
But it was realized that the 13-member team could not fit in the house and in the end three of the athletes had to share one bed in someone’s home, away from the Carifta village.
To compound the matter the original house offered was under renovation and was very untidy and the team manager and one athlete refused to stay in it.
According to the source upon refusal of the house, a Carifta rooming official made a statement that “he really was not going to wrap his head around nothing for Dominicans and he did not care.”
At the Marriott Hotel, the teams from Dominica and French Guyana gathered in the lobby and made themselves comfortable by laying on the floor and couches, while team managers fought to get rooms for them.
The source stated that when the teams from Trinidad and Jamaica arrived, they received rooms within an hour and members were left roaming the hotel’s lobby wondering why other teams had not received rooms.
During the long hours of wait for rooms the Dominican athletes felt frustrated, hungry, restless and uncomfortable, and were eventually taken out for something to eat by the team manager, the source said.
After 12 hours of wait the Dominicans were finally given two villas at Ocean’s Edge, where they were originally told they were going to stay anyway, and this occurred only after the team from the BVI began demanding a refund.
But getting villas at Ocean’s Edge did not end the troubles for the Dominican team.
The source said there are no amenities that the team paid for in the levy for the games.
“No cleaners, no heater just a plain apartment with nothing,” the source said. “We all paid the same levy but Trinindad and Jamaica were treated like Kings and Queens and the smaller island like dogs.”
Because Ocean Edge is far from the Carifta village, the Dominican team has to leave three times a day to buy meals at the supermarket.
Despite the adversities two Dominicans have moved on to finals at the games: Derrick St. Jean in the 400M U-20 male in a time of 48.71 seconds and Kellandie Bully in the 400M U-18 Girls at 57.47 seconds.
Finals will be held today (Saturday at 6:00 pm).
Also competing in other disciplines are Raheem Joseph and Kihmo Benjamin in the U-20 Boys Discus.
Record holder Shanee Angol will compete in the U-18 girls javelin while Jazan Laurent will compete in 1500-M.
Set to compete also are Zellie Charles in the Long Jump and Josh Toussaint in the Shot Put.
Carifta 2015 ends on April 6.