Katura Horton-Perinchief, Bermuda’s chef de mission, admits she is concerned and saddened by the lack of women in Bermuda’s Commonwealth Games team.

The Gold Coast will be the first games in history embracing true gender equality, with an equal number of medal events for men and women, and yet Bermuda’s only female competitors are triathletes Flora Duffy and Erica Hawley.

Horton-Perinchief, a diver at the 2004 Athens Olympic Games, is perplexed as to why so many of the island’s most talented females are dropping out of sport.

“This is the smallest female team we’ve had and that’s a bit concerning,” she said. “We have some wildly talented girls but they seem to find other things to do.

“It means we’re left with a much smaller pool of girls to pick from. It’s tough to watch as a former female athlete.”

The matter is close to Horton-Perinchief’s heart as a former chairman of Women in Sports, now chaired by Donna Raynor, the Bermuda National Athletics Association president.

“Donna has done so much work with the schools and with female members of the national governing bodies to ascertain why we’re losing girls when they hit a certain age,” she said.

“We socialise boys to think we can have careers in sport whereas for girls, sport is mainly touted as a hobby.

“We have Branwen Smith-King, Donna Raynor and Debbie Jones-Hunter who have made careers from sport. They’ve gone from athletes to administrators to directors; it’s not like we don’t have examples of this.”

Horton-Perinchief says there is no shortage of sporting role models for Bermudian girls but believes the island’s top former athletes can do more to “reach out to young girls and keep them involved”.

She said: “Flora is such an amazing athlete and a special asset to Bermuda and I know that triathlon has seen a boost in participation.

“But it’s not just on Flora [to inspire young females]. There have been so many top female athletes such as Arantxa King, a two-times Olympic long jumper, who has just passed the bar [as a lawyer].”

Horton-Perinchief revealed the Bermuda Olympic Association would have been entitled to more accredited officials had they sent an equal number of male and female athletes to the Gold Coast.

“What is unique about these Games is that they actually gave incentives to be gender equal,” said Perinchief, the chef de mission for the 2014 Youth Olympic Games in Nanjing, China.

“You could actually get more officials accredited if you had at least an equal number of men and women.

“We’ve forfeited several official spots because we could not furnish a team with more girls. That’s tough, especially when you consider we can’t take a press attaché and we can’t take enough physio support.

“It was an amazing incentive and we need to come to the table, too, to figure out where the gaps lie.”

Horton-Perinchief says the BOA wanted to send a larger team but felt it would be irresponsible to select athletes unprepared for such a high-level competition.

The Cayman Islands, for instance, a similar sized island, has named 22 athletes in seven disciplines for the Gold Coast.

“The Commonwealth Games is touted as the ‘friendly games’ and I hope that it stays that way,” Horton-Perinchief, 35, said.

“But at the same time we don’t want to be sending young athletes who are out of their depth and unprepared, because they may have a bad experience and then never come back.

“It’s about being competitive. We’re not sending anybody who can’t hold their own. We wish the team was bigger, however.”

The first black woman to compete in Olympic diving, Horton-Perinchief says her own experiences of major competitions enables her to easily relate to Bermuda’s athletes in the Gold Coast.

“I hope that gives me at least some idea of what the athletes may need, especially in the case of our first-timers [Erica Hawley and Tyler Smith],” she said.

“My second Commonwealth Games in Melbourne 2006 was actually Flora Duffy’s first. I’m excited to help introduce Erica and Tyler to the senior level.”

It was never Perinchief’s plan to be so involved in local sport, as a coach and administrator, when she retired.

But such was her profound “sense of loss” after quitting diving she subsequently reached out to the BOA to offer her services.

“It never really crossed my mind while I was an athlete; I was so focused,” said Horton-Perinchief, who set up her Star Diving summer camp in 2014. “The second I retired and got a real job there was a sense of loss, if I can call it that. I was feeling very disconnected from something that was my life for 20 years.

“I spoke with the BOA president [Judy Simons] and Mr [Phil] Guishard, and asked how could I get involved in the Olympic movement. That’s how I ended up running for the Athletes’ Commission.

“The transition from athlete to non-athlete was a tough one, but it’s really helped getting back into the BOA.”