Chik-V cripples Sunshine Girls

With all but three members of the squad affected at one point or the other by the chikungunya virus, several of the island?s netballers are now in a race against time to prove their fitness ahead of next month?s Fast5 Netball World Series.

With players missing weeks of training in some cases, head coach Minnett Reynolds is left more than a little concerned with the team?s preparation heading into the November 8-9 tournament, which takes place in Auckland, New Zealand.

Only veterans Paula Thompson and Simone Forbes, as well as young defender Staciann Facey, have escaped the effects of the virus that has swept across the island, with the likes of last year?s MVP, Thristina Harwood, and Shanice Beckford, who was voted by her teammates as Jamaica?s best player at the recent Commonwealth Games, among those affected.

?One of our shooters have been out for over two weeks and she only came back on Monday and has been training twice per day, and that has been taking a toll on her body,? Reynolds told The Gleaner. ?It (the virus) has affected us tremendously; we have at least three to four girls who are not able to train much and when they return they are not fully recovered because they are a little weak and still feeling a little pain in the joints and so on.

?We have been working very hard and trying to get them in tip-top shape. We are not where we want to be in terms of our preparation for Fast5,? added Reynolds. ?For instance, the month of September was dedicated to strength and fitness alone, and with the virus we could not do much of that.

intense preparation

?It?s a Fast5 tournament, so it requires high-intensity preparation and we have not been able to do much of that. When they do come back they have to do low intensity work and that does not help us in preparing properly for the Fast5 tournament.?

Now, with uncertainty still hanging over the fitness of several members of the team and just over two weeks to go before the start of the tournament, Reynolds and Netball Jamaica have been forced to make certain adjustments to the squad.

?There are some players who we left out originally from our Fast5 squad with our upcoming series in January in mind, because after the Fast5 tournament we go back to regular netball against England for a three-Test series.

?We have had to change a bit and take some of our older players like our captain (Nicole Aiken). Originally, we weren?t planning to take her to the Fast5 tournament, but we had to change all of

that and include her in the Fast5 team because of the disruption,? Reynolds said.