Out of 112 handpicked track-and-field athletes for the 2025 Barbados Grand Prix, Caymanian Olympian Davonte Howell has made the cut as a draft pick.
The Grand Prix team will welcome national and regional athletes who have been personally invited based on the athlete’s outstanding 2024 to 2025 season performance.
This new, invitation-only athletics meet is being hosted at the Usain Bolt Sports Complex in Barbados and is pioneered by Aren Spencer, a national junior record holder in triple jump and five-time CARIFTA medalist for Barbados.
Howell, who will be competing in the 100 metre sprint, told the Compass, “I feel great and I’m excited to run in front of extended family who haven’t seen me in a while.”
He added that this will be the first time they’ve seen him run in person, so he hopes to “put on a show”.
“I just hope to run as fast as I can on that day and execute the best race I possibly can,” he said.
Athletes who accept the invitation to participate in the meet become eligible to enter the draft and compete for a spot on one of the four Grand Prix teams.
Four managers and four coaches have been chosen to conduct the narrowing down of the pool of athletes using the snake draft method until eight athletes have been selected for each event. Selected athletes will compete in only one event during the meet.
Not all athletes will be selected during the draft process to compete on the 5 July meet day.
The draft does not yet have a finalised date, but according to a Barbados Grand Prix Instagram story post, it will occur within the first two weeks of June.
The lineup of the competition includes: 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m, long jump (men and women), 100m hurdles (women), 110m hurdles (men), shot put (men), 4x400m mixed relay and mixed shuttle relay.
The announcement of invitees is currently ongoing; however, other athletes confirmed to compete in the meet include Olympians Michelle-Lee Ahye, Jonathan Jones, Mario Burke and Akela Jones.
Prize money of various amounts will be awarded to teams and participants based on specific, predetermined categories.
