PHILIPSBURG--Michaelangelo Bell is going to the Caribbean and Central American Games. He and members of the Judo Team will represent St. Maarten at the 23rd Central American and Caribbean Games in Barranquilla, Colombia this July. Once again, his goal is to not just qualify for the Olympics, but to compete there.
Bell has qualified and competed at the CAC level many times. He first went to the games nearly 10 years ago. “I think I have been in six or seven CAC games,” he said.
Bell did well at the CAC and advanced to the Pan American Games. He was even a B-qualifier for the Olympics. An A qualification means the athlete has earned enough competition points to attend the Olympics; a B qualifier was close to the requirements but received an invitation, so the Olympics can include as many countries as possible.
Ten years ago Bell was on the St. Maarten Judo team representing the Netherlands Antilles; there was not enough money to send B qualifiers so that neither Bell nor the team went. Everyone was of course disappointed.
Due to 10-10-10 St. Maarten achieved country status, but in doing so lost the Netherlands Antilles Olympic Committee. With a Dutch passport, despite country status, the path to the Olympics was unclear.
Then in 2016 the International Olympic Committee made some rule changes to safeguard the rights of the athlete. The new rules allow any athlete that qualifies to go to the games directly even if their country is not a member. For St. Maarten this means if Bell or any St. Maartener does well at the CACs, despite a Dutch passport, they can compete at the Pan American games under the Pan American Flag.
If the athlete does well at Pan American and qualifies for the Olympics, they can compete with the IOC flag.
Ten years ago, the team trained hard. “We trained three times a day for nearly two hours each session,” said Bell. “We started in the morning at 5:30, finished went to school; trained in the afternoon. Took a rest did homework and were at it again that evening.
“We are still training like that now. Instead of school I must go to work, but we are training two to three times a day. The hurricane messed us up. We loss nearly a month maybe two of training.”
Bell still went to the CAC qualifier and squeezed in. “I did not do as well as I hoped, but with all the missed training it was okay. We are back to a full schedule now and our eyes are on the Olympics.”
