Squash stars ready to raise their game

Barbados’ squash players returned home from the Central American and Caribbean (CAC) Games in the Dominican Republic with a historic four-medal haul — and a determination to raise the bar even higher.

Players captured two gold, a silver and a bronze, with Margot Prow winning the women’s singles title and Meagan Best taking silver. The women’s team also struck gold despite losing Amanda Haywood to injury ahead of the final, while the men’s team secured bronze.

Double medallist Meagan Best said she was delighted to have helped secure medals for Barbados as she and her teammates returned home on Sunday to a welcome from family, friends and members of the Barbados Squash Association executive at Grantley Adams International Airport.

“We can all say that we’ve been working hard and over the years we’ve had some unfortunate losses and obviously some good wins, but this one is something special. To finally get an individual medal for myself means a lot and I think it’s just more motivation to keep going and keep bringing home results for Barbados,” Best said.

The women’ s singles silver medallist was defeated by compatriot Margot Prow in the final. She described the experience of playing her teammate in a gold medal match as interesting.

“We trained together sometimes back in New York and I would have played her recently in nationals, but this was definitely a different feeling being on a more of an international stage and having to still try and compete.

“As I’ve said before, however, it was just kind of nice going into the match knowing that either way there’s a gold medal coming home to Barbados. She was just the better player on the day, but you know I’m not going to settle for silver next time,” Best said.

For Khamal Cumberbatch, winning a bronze medal in the men’s team competition was an amazing experience.

“Obviously we expected better, but at this level (CAC), to get a medal for Barbados is amazing honestly. We’ve always had the ability but due to some unforeseen circumstances, I felt like we just fell a bit short.”

Having played at the CAC level from as far back as 2018, Cumberbatch was of the view that the standard of play was better than ever during this year’s edition.

“The level was a lot higher. We had guys in the top 20 competing and the players were incredibly strong all across the board. Yet we were able to show that we could represent ourselves well on the international stage,” he explained.

Shawn Simpson was the senior member of the delegation, having had over two decades of international experience. He described the team’s success as difficult to put into words.

“I’ve been here since 2002 and when we won the first medals in 2006 at the CAC Games. That in itself was a big moment and now with this generation with Khamal and Meagan leading the team, we’re even taking it a step further. I’m tremendously happy with how they’re playing.

“They are definitely ambassadors for Barbados along with the rest of the team. Squash is definitely on the right track.”