SKNA Commends Jaylen Bennett’s Performance

Basseterre, St. Kitts, April 11, 2023 (ZIZ Sports): St. Kitts Nevis Athletics is commending athlete Jaylen Bennett for his performance at the just concluded CARIFTA games in the Bahamas following controversy surrounding his Under 17 200m race.

According to a post on the SKNA Facebook page Bennett was not included in the original start list provided by the games but received a DNS (did not start) in the Men’s 200m finals.

The SKNA filed an official appeal and won.  Bennett was given the opportunity to run an individual Men’s U-17 200 m final.    The SKNA said he ran an “impressive time of 22.06 seconds..

However this time did not sit well with many of the fans as they said the timer on the race showed that he crossed the finish line before the 22 second mark.

In an exclusive interview with ZIZ President of SKNA, Delwayne Delaney explained that the time that viewers see is not regarded as the official time.

“When the clock is stopped, when we see the time, it’s usually manually,” he said.  “And then it is corrected to the exact.  So you might give or take, because of how the brain works and reaction time you might stop, generally, you might stop the clock late, manually.  Until the technical persons are given a few seconds to adjust the time and you would have seen the photo finish image with a line coming across Jaylen’s torso and that’s where times are collected. That’s where the data is collected. From the torso.”

In a follow up post on its Facebook page, the SKNA said “We have confirmed by way of photo finish that Jaylen Bennett did run 22.06 seconds in his individual timed final. Although we are heartbroken by the difficulties surrounding this event we are extremely proud of Mr Bennett for not only capturing a silver medal in the U17 400m final but also for all of his contributions towards the success of team #unstoppableskn for the 50th Carifta Games.”