Travel chaos in the United States has left Bermuda’s bowling team in limbo on the eve of the start of their Central American and Caribbean Games campaign in El Salvador.

The six-man contingent of Dennis Joell, Damien Matthews, David Maycock, Carl Reid, Lamar Richardson, Dayvon Tucker were due to arrive in Central America on Tuesday ahead of the competition getting under way with the men’s individual division on Wednesday.

However, the team have been unable to travel to El Salvador, having initially been delayed in Newark airport as a result of storms across the region. With a lack of alternative routes and seats on later flights being available, they will now miss the first three days of competition.

Saturday is now the earliest they can arrive, which means the individual and doubles competitions will now have no Bermuda representation. It remains to be seen whether the team will be able to compete in the Trios on Sunday and Quintets on Tuesday.

“The team are doing their best to be here,” said Peter Dunne, president of the Olympic Association. “I went to their tech meeting today and our team is well known by the event organisers. They all certainly want them to be here as do we, of course.”

Ahead of the competition, Maycock spoke of the team’s ambition of adding further CAC Games silverware to their collection, having previously won a silver medal in the men’s trio in Colombia in 2018.

“We had success at the CAC Games before and so we know what needs to be done to do that again,” said Maycock.

“Obviously the initial aim is to go there and do that again, we always go away aiming to come back to Bermuda with some silverware.

“Preparation has been going well. It was tough during the Covid-19 pandemic because the lanes were not accessible to us, but this year we’ve been able to train hard again and so we’re looking good.

“As a team we know we are capable of going out there and doing something.

“The important thing is to stay in our lane, focus on ourselves and not worry about anyone else.”