Team Jamaica Bickle hosts church service to kick off Penn Relays
Considering Jamaica’s legacy as the sprint capital of the world an enviable one, voluntary organisation, Team Jamaica Bickle, has gone the distance to contribute to Jamaican high schools and university teams to the Penn Relays at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia in the United States for more than 20 years.
Team Jamaica Bickle is a not-forprofit organisation, based in New York. It was formed in 1994, under the leadership of Irwine Clare.
The organisation held its Final Thanksgiving Service Send-off to the Penn Relays yesterday at St John’s Church in New York.
HOSTING ATHLETES
On Saturday, the organisation also hosted a breakfast fund-raiser at the St Luke’s Episcopal Church also in New York, with the hope of raising funds for hosting athletes from Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Guyana at this week’s relays carnival.
“We are grateful for the support of the community. Thanks for making our third Annual Breakfast a success. Please visit our website www.teamjamaicabickle.org to make your donations as we continue to prepare to host our athletes,” said the organisation’s founder.
“When the athletes do well it impacts the country and citizens everywhere positively,” he added.
TJB has assisted local high schools with meals, hotel accommodations, transportation, tickets at the event and chiropractic service each year.
This year, TJB is calling on diaspora members to help them meet its target of around US$ 80,000 ahead of the April 28-30 event.
Jamaican winger Leon Bailey continued his red-hot form in the Belgian Pro League Championship yesterday, but despite scoring his club’s lone goal, he could not prevent Genk from going down 2-1 to Gent.
The win enabled Gent to climbed one point and a place above their opponent in the table to third with 36 points.
Bailey, a former Kingston College student and former Kingston and St. Andrew Football association most valuable player, has reportedly been of the radar of European giants, Chelsea and Borussia Dortmund as well as other European big name clubs.
The 18-year-old, who wears the number 31 shirt for the Belgian club, headed Genk into the lead only 15 minutes into the game, from a right side cross, to register his fifth goal of the season.
They could not hold on to their advantage as Laurent Depoitre’s goal on 23 minutes pulled their opponent level and despite Kenneth Saeif being shown the red card a minute before the break, Gent still managed to get the victory as Renato Neto 90th minute penalty gave them a late win over their fierce rivals.