Seventeen of the best primary and middle school athletes will represent Bermuda at the Caribbean Union of Teachers' (CUT) Track and Field Championships this weekend.

The contingent, who will compete against several Caribbean countries in the ninth biennial meet in Trinidad on July 27-28, leave the Island today, promising to give a strong showing.

"We have selected some of the best athletes in our school system and we just want to go and be competitive. We want to represent Bermuda and the Bermuda Union of Teachers to the best of our ability and we're hoping to do extremely well," said head coach Cal Simons of their expectations.

He and assistant coaches, Bill Euler and Florence Sharpe, will be hoping this year's team can at least win one age category like the squad of two years ago. At the 2000 championships, held in Martinique, Bermuda's Adrian Minks was the champion boy in the Under-11 age category.

Athletes will compete in age groups from eight and under to under-15 and it will be the fifth occasion on which Bermuda has participated in the meet. Whitney Matthew is the only Bermudian athlete in this year's team who has competed at the CUT level before.

Some of the top names in local athletics making the trip are Donte Brangman, Dante Leverock, Trey Simons, Tristan Francis, Brittany Pitt, Howard Ascento, Latroya Darrell and Deanne Lightbourne. Several athletes are flying to Trinidad from North Carolinas where they competed in the Russell E.Blunt East Coast Invitational last weekend at Duke University.

At that event, Bermuda Pacers earned an impressive haul of medals.

The 10 local athletes, accompanied by coach Simons, collected 12 golds, three silver and three bronze while establishing several new meet records.

Latroya Darrell and Allison Outerbridge set four new records between them. Darrell, competing in the girls' 13-14 division, recorded 5ft 5in in the high jump to beat the previous mark by three inches, although her leap just missed the Bermuda national record of five feet six and a half inches.

She also set a new triple jump record of 37 feet and three inches, surpassing the old mark of 32 ft and six inches.

Darrell was later named the most outstanding athlete in her division.

Outerbridge, competing in the meet for the first time, set new records in high jump and long jump while contesting the 9-10 girls' divison. She surpassed her previous best of 4ft 4 inches with a jump of 4ft 6in in the high jump and then had an impressive 13ft 6 inch leap in the long jump, beating the previous record by two inches.

Harold Houston was also a double gold medallist in the boys' 11-12 division. He ran 25.8 in the 200 metres and jumped 17ft 8in in the long jump.

Richard Walcott won gold in the boys' 17-18 1500 metres with a time of 4.05.30 and then grabbed silver in the 800 metres which he completed in 1.56.7.

Deanne Lightbourne struck gold in the girls' 11-12 division 800m and 1500m, running a personal best of 2.22.74 in the first event.

Trey Simons competed in the boys' 9-10 division and won gold in the 1500m with a personal best of 5.01.84 and then collected silver with a 2.30.45 clocking in the 800m.

Other gold medal winners were Brittany Marshall in the girls' 15-16 discus with a throw of 110ft 11in; Donte Leverock in the boys' 9-10 division with a 14ft 9ins leap in the long jump and Reginald Walcott who recorded 39ft 9ins in the boys' 13-14 division triple jump.

The Pacers 9-10 boys won their division while the boys in the 11-12 group placed second.

Overall the team placed fifth out of 170 teams participating in the three-day event.