Arantxa King, Latroya Darrell and Matthew Spring are three of the big names on a list of 15 athletes selected to represent Bermuda at the Carifta Games next month.

Unveiling their team yesterday ? which contains three more athletes than for last year?s Games in Tobago ? the Bermuda Track and Field Association were keen to stress that the door is not yet closed to anybody who subsequently meets the qualifying standard to compete in Guadeloupe from April 12-18.

But BTFA official Stan Williams said only those who had been training regularly under the national programme and had been competing in officially recognised meets would be considered.

?We?re pretty happy overall with the team we?ve selected,? he said.

?We were allowed a maximum of two athletes per age group, per event and per gender so in that sense it would have been nice to have had representation in a broader range of events than we do. But we can only select from those that were training on a regular basis and those that were consistently reaching the qualifying standard.

?One of the things we stressed to all the athletes trying to qualify for Carifta was that it would not be acceptable for them to, for example, reach the qualifying standard in a meet in December and then not train or compete much after that because they were already certain of their place.

?The 15 that are going have all shown the level of commitment and consistency that we were looking for and I?m sure there will be some success stories down there.?

As the reigning world youth long jump champion, King ? who is currently representing Bermuda at the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne ? is the undisputed favourite for the gold medal in the Under 20 girls long jump competition and is expected to challenge the Carifta record.

She will also compete in the triple jump, an event her mother and coach Branwen Smith-King believes could ultimately be her strongest suit.

Specialist high jumper Darrell, who has medalled in every single Carifta Games since 2002, including a silver in Tobago last year, will be hoping to go one better this time round and has also qualified for the triple jump.

Spring meanwhile, the highly-rated young middle distance runner has qualified for the 800, 1500 and 3000 metre events in the Under 17 boys division ? with national coaches quietly confident he could gain a place on the podium in at least one of the disciplines.

In stark contrast to the Under 17 girls where there are eight athletes in total, only three Under 17 boys ? Harold Houston, Aaron Evans and Spring ? have met the qualifying standard.

Williams was prepared to admit the BTFA?s anxiety over this.

?The fact is that there are far more young female athletes around in Bermuda than male,? he said.

?It is a pretty common problem. Boys when they get to 16,17 start to get interested in bikes and girls and we often end up losing them ? despite our best efforts.

?We also sometimes lose some very good athletes to other sports, particularly football. But given our size and the fact that it costs a lot of money to go away to these events, I think 15 is a reasonable sized team and if we can bring back in the region of four or five medals, we will have done very well.?