A delegation of athletes and coaches of the Jamaica Paralympic Association (JPA) left the island recently for Birmingham, England, where members have been participating in a training camp in connection with the staging of the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games between July 28 and August 8.
Neville Sinclair, JPA’s sport manager, and Sandra Reittie, Jamaica’s international umpire in table tennis, head the delegation, the athletes who will participate in various training exercises along with others from Commonwealth nations. Sinclair said, “the training camp will certainly allow our athletes to acclimatise for the big day and will expose them to competition that we expect they will meet in the summer.”
JPA President, Christopher Samuda, stated that “the JPA is hoping that prior training camps for our athletes and coaches in countries hosting international events will become a feature for us in our ongoing efforts to optimise athletes’ performance and, from an administrative perspective, advance the professionalization of the delivery of games.” Some athletes of the JPA have participated in previous Commonwealth Games which accommodate limited para events. In the last edition in the Gold Coast, Australia, Tevaughn Thomas, one of two athletes, earned a bronze medal in the T47 100m.
The Jamaica Paralympic Association is a member of the International Paralympic Committee (IPC), the global governing body for para-sport, and the Americas Paralympic Committee (APC), the regional apex body of which Samuda is a member of the Executive Board.
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