Having started out on grass tracks, with athletes staying in schools or other similar temporary shelter, the CARIFTA Games have come a long way.
College and university coaches and scouts from the United States make their way to the Games each year, in a bid to identify up-and-coming athletes.
The Games have produced world record holders Usain Bolt, Darrel Brown, World and Olympic champions such as Veronica Campbell Brown of Jamaica, Kim Collins of St Kitts-Nevis and Pauline Davis-Thompson of the Bahamas, Alleyne Francique of Grenada and Obadele Thompson of Barbados.
In the early years, a handful of territories (Barbados, Trinidad & Tobago, Bahamas, Martinique, Guadeloupe, Bermuda) had facilities appropriate for hosting what really is a world-class meet.
[3] The Games are hosted directly under the auspices of the North and Central American and Caribbean Confederation of World Athletics, more commonly known as NACAC.
The women's horizontal jump records are almost as long-lived, Jackie Edwards' 1987 mark of 6.14 m was the Under-17 winning distance that year, and Daphne Saunders' leap of 6.93 m won her the 1989 title.
Starting in 1977,[63] the Austin Sealy Award is presented to the athlete adjudged the most outstanding, either in terms of record accomplishment, or quality of performance as compared to other top medallists.
In the year 1981, U17 sprinter Candy Ford from Bermuda, who then won three gold medals (100 m, 200 m, and 400 m), was awarded the so-called "Oscar Steele Challenge Trophy" for being the most outstanding athlete of the games.