Barbados is targeting a multiple-medal haul at the 2028 Olympic Games, with the Athletics Association of Barbados (AAB) planning a $1.5 million-a-year elite programme to fast-track the country’s top senior athletes. AAB President Noel Lynch unveiled the plan on Tuesday night as Barbados’ 11-member team returned from the World Junior Championships in Oregon, where the squad reached four finals and eight semi-finals. Jayden Green highlighted the team’s performance, winning bronze in the 100m. Lynch said the proposed programme is the next step after the success of the AAB’s junior development initiative and is aimed at giving Barbados a stronger platform to challenge for medals at the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028. “When we won the 4x400m relay at the CARIFTA Games this year, 15 minutes hadn’t passed when the Prime Minister (Mia Mottley) called to ask what we needed to take these athletes to the next level. She has committed to it and put her money where her mouth was,” he told journalists outside the Grantley Adams International Airport’s arrivals hall.

“It’s going to look a lot like the junior programme, but we’re going to start with a small core of 10 or 12 people, who we believe are not ready yet to leave Barbados to go into the US on scholarship.

“What we’re going to do is give them a stipend. To be able to run you can’t work and stand up in nobody’s store and come back and run every evening,” he disclosed.