Amelia Othman and Caitlyn Bobb met the Carifta Games qualifying standard with months to spare competing on opposite sides of the Atlantic at the weekend.

Othman qualified in the under-17 girls high jump with a leap of 1.55 metres at the Bermuda National Athletics Association’s track and field meet.

She represented Bermuda at the Carifta Games in Nassau, Bahamas, last year, narrowly missing out on a bronze medal after finishing tied for fourth.

Bobb also booked her ticket to the Carifta Games, to be held in the Cayman Islands in April, after reaching the standard in two separate disciplines.

The daughter of Olympian Dawnette Douglas, who competed in the 100 at the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, met the standard after winning under-17 girls’ 200 in a time of 25.88sec and the 400 in 58.27 at the Franklin & Marshall High School Invitational Indoor meet.

“For them to qualify early in the season is excellent because it takes the pressure off them,” Donna Raynor, the BNAA president, said. “Now they can just look at improving and preparing for Carifta ... They are both very young.”

Othman and Bobb are the first of what Raynor hopes will be many more local athletes to qualify for the regional event.

“We’re hoping to get at least 20 athletes for this year’s Carifta,” she said. “We have several other athletes who are in school in the United States and local athletes.

“We have some athletes who have moved up from under-17 to under-20, so, of course, that’s going to be a little tougher for them.

“When we had our first meeting with the athletes to talk about Carifta 2019 and 2020, we were excited about how many showed an interests.”

Raynor is also excited about the prospect of Bermuda being represented in the hurdles for the first time in two years in Cayman Islands.

“We are training some athletes for hurdles; that’s an event Bermuda hasn’t participated in a long time,” she said.

“Some of the athletes have been training since November and we have quite a few who are really good potentials. I’m not saying potentials from a medal standpoint, but potential as hurdlers, so we are pretty excited about that.”

The Carifta Games will be held at the Truman Bodden Sports Complex in Grand Cayman from April 20 to 22.