By Ronald Shillingford

Donald McLean, President of the Cayman Islands Olympic Committee, is generally pleased with how the five Olympians performed.

Shaune and Brett Fraser worked their magic in the pool and Kemar Hyman reached the 100 metres sprint semis but pulled out through injury, as did Cydonie Mothersill in the women’s 200m. Ronald Forbes went out in the heats of the 110m hurdles.

McLean said: “This was the first time that we’ve gotten so many individuals into semi-finals. Our swimmers went to three semis and in fact, we had two in one semi-final.

“Kemar made one semi-final too. I think overall the team did quite well. We had a hiccup with the two athletes not running. We were very disappointed about that but ultimately, it’s the call of the athlete.

“In Cydonie’s case we knew she had some niggling injuries. Kemar’s situation caught us, we didn’t know he was suffering from an injury.

“Going forward, the Cayman Islands Olympic Committee and the Ministry of Sports will work closer with the athletes and try and instill upon them the importance of when they are representing Cayman and not just in the Olympics, but also in the CAC Games, Commonwealth Games and Pan Am Games.”

McLean is confident a few more athletes will soon join the elite band of eight full-timers. “It’s a bit early to say, but we do have the javelin thrower Alex Pascal who has potential, Ashleigh Nalty (high jump) and the swimmer Lara Butler who is at school in the UK.

“There are some other sports as well. Maybe there’s some potential for the boxers. To get to the Olympics is extremely difficult, we know that.

“I think shooting, if they could have reached the minimum qualifying score. I was pretty much assured by Olympic Solidarity that they would get a spot. But they didn’t shoot the minimum score, missed it by one target.

“Boxing is very difficult because there are only so many spots and a lot of people are applying. Although our boxers did okay at the world championships we were not awarded a spot, the reason being we already had five qualified athletes.

“Our great success shows with Olympic Solidarity and the Olympic Movement who are very pleased with the Cayman Islands. On a per capita basis we have probably qualified more than any other country at ‘A’ standard.

“So there are a lot of positives that can come out of this and we shouldn’t focus on the negative. We’re all disappointed. The whole of Cayman is disappointed. The athletes themselves are disappointed. But we can’t dwell on that all the time. We have to look forward.”

Ron Shillingford is the Cayman Islands Olympic Committee pool journalist who will be covering the London games for all local media.