More than three decades ago, he gave birth to what is now one of the world's leading regional junior meetings. It's 32 years on, but CARIFTA Games founder Austin Sealy still sees the Caribbean's junior track & field championships as his biggest achievement in sports.
Home for Christmas, Sealy the immediate past president of the Barbados Olympic Association (BOA) and the first Barbadian to be a member of the International Olympic Committee, was one of the guests of honour at the BOA's annual cocktail reception on Monday evening (27 Dec). There he received the National Olympic Committee's Merit Award, while sports journalist Andy Thornhill of the Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation was given the IOC's Sport and Media Award.
CARIFTA - a shining example
Sealy recalled that in the 1970s he had meetings with Casper Springer, Alkins Kirton, Keith Simmons and Winston Skinner about athletics. "We couldn't find any senior athletes at that time and it led in fact to the thinking that saw the birth of the CARIFTA Games," he said.
"In 1972 we had a few athletes on scholarship in the United States but they weren't performing exceptionally well, so we thought we would start from scratch," he explained.
"The sporting world regards what we have here in the Caribbean - particularly 1985 to 1989 when CARIFTA was multi-sport - as a shining example that other regions would love to follow and adopt. I do follow the CARIFTA progress with much interest."
Sherrylyn Clarke & Terry Finisterre for the IAAF