The queens of school track and field hit the streets on Monday to celebrate their second consecutive triumph in the Dasani BSSAC Championships.
At 10 a.m., dozens of athletes, cheerleaders, and coaches departed The St Michael School on two trucks for a jubilant motorcade through parts of The City.
Before the parade set off, coach Gabriel Burnett told Barbados TODAY that the team’s confidence this season was so high that plans for the victory celebration had already begun even before the championships were won.
“It feels great, we don’t really do a big celebration in the school because this is what the athletes want. Every year they ask for the motorcade, so we make sure that we put this on for them.”
Burnett says the reality of the achievement has already sunken in.
“It has and that is partially because we expected it from last year,
so it wasn’t a surprise. People may think that we are cocky and all that, but it’s not that, we were confident in what we were doing, we were confident in what we’re building and we were able to deliver. It’s just what we expect.”
With the team further enhancing the school’s legacy as an athletic powerhouse, the head coach says they will always embrace the challenge to maintain excellence.
“One thing I always tell the athletes, all the glory is theirs. All the issues belong to me, so I take on the issues, the pressures, everything, and me being a former athlete going all the way to the Olympics and stuff, I don’t feel the pressure. Our sponsor Pedialyte Sport, they support us and they don’t put any pressure on us.”
The display of school spirit and athletic excellence had residents cheering and waving as the champions paraded through the community, traveling from Welches to Station Hill and finally approaching Combermere School, which secured the boys’ title for a third consecutive year.
With the thrum of the music truck in the distance, students rushed to the fences and gates, scrambling for every possible vantage point. After a few tense minutes, and with the celebrating St Michael School students urging officials to “let them out,” permission was finally granted by Combermere principal Robin Douglas.
Moments later, to the strains of Machel’s 2025 hit “PARDY,” hundreds of students poured through the gates, greeted by their counterparts from St Michael School, who had by then dismounted the trucks.
For the next fifteen minutes, traffic slowed to a crawl as motorists, well-wishers, and officials from both schools joined in the celebrations.
After competing fiercely on the tracks just last week, the students linked arms in a jubilant display of school pride before the motorcade made its way back to Bridgetown.
