Chantoba Bright will now represent Guyana at the South American Youth and U-23 Championships instead of the 2016 IAAF World U20 Championships in which starts tomorrow in Bydgoszcz, Poland.
This is according to president of the Athletic Association of Guyana (AAG), Aubrey Hutson.
Hutson relayed to this publication yesterday that Bright was a late replacement for the championships and that the timeline was too short to acquire the necessary documents for this year’s CARIFTA Games long and triple jump silver medalist (U-18) to travel to Europe.
“The whole timeline would have been too short” Hutson noted.
“Getting the visas for Poland and finding almost US$4800 per ticket (of which the IAAF would have refunded some amount), we thought it best with all the logistics with getting them (Bright and her coach) out there with three days of traveling and so forth to forego that championships.”
According to Hutson, the Lindener will now represent the Golden Arrowhead at the U-23 event in September in Peru and the Youth Championships in Argentina in November.
With the deadline for the final entries now closed, a total of 1518 athletes (832 males and 686 females) have been entered to compete in Poland. It looks set to be the second-biggest World U20 Championships to date, bettered only by the 2012 edition in Barcelona, where 1566 athletes participated.
Note: The IAAF World U20 Championships were previously known as the IAAF World Junior Championships before undergoing a rebranding heading into 2016.
