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With less than three months until the July cut-off dates for Olympic qualification, Bermuda has several athletes vying for spots on the plane to Beijing.

Most are facing an intense battle to beat their own personal bests and set new national records to meet the tougher qualifying criteria.

Some are already there and other are almost finsshed. Here Don Burgess and James Whittaker take a close look at the chances of the 12 athletes still vying for places at the Games - what they've done so far and what they need to do to qualify.

Xavier James

Track and Field

100m

Qualifying Standard: 10.28

Best time this season: 10.54

Personal Best: 10.40

Verdict: James is pretty close to making the time, but a couple of hundredths of a second is a long time in a sprint.

He's pretty confident that he can make it, and heads to the CAC Games in Colombia next month, where he hopes to break the 10.29 barrier.

Even if he doesn't make the time, he could end up in Beijing anyway.

Each country is allowed to take at least one male track and field athlete. And if nobody makes the qualifying standard it's down to the IAAF to choose between a list of candidates submitted by the Bermuda association.

Schoolteacher James, whose father is sports minister El James, would be up against Michael Donawa and Tyrone Smith for the selection and the fact that he competed in Athens and competes in a quick-fire event will help his cause.

Tyrone Smith

Track and Field

Long Jump

Qualifying Standard: 8.05m

Best this season: 7.84m

Personal Best: 7.90m

Verdict: Smith is training with U.S. Olympic legend Carl Lewis' team in the States and working with Lewis' former coach.

He regularly trains with Dwight Phillips, who took the gold in Athens, and competes at top level meets in the States.

Last week he jumped 7.84m at the Mount Sac relays in California. Smith, who was born in Bermuda but grew up in the States, also competed at the World Indoor Championships last month.

He would have to beat his personal best to qualify, but is confident of doing just that. If he doesn't qualify he may get the nod over James as Bermuda's male track athlete because he competed at the Indoor World's.

Arantxa King

Track and Field

Long Jump

Qualifying Standard: 6.60

Best this season: 6.03 (outdoors)

Personal Best: 6.42 (indoors)

Verdict: Bermuda's female athlete of the year in 2005, King shot to prominence when she won the World Youth Championships in that year with her personal best leap of 6.39 metres.

She now competes for Stanford University - one of the top track colleges in the U.S. - and will be attending a host of meets over the coming months.

Her upcoming meets are the Payton Jordan Cardinal Invitational (May 4), the Pac-10 Championships (May 16-17), the NCAA Regional Championships (May 30-31), and the NCAA Championships (June 11-14). She has already qualified for Regionals in the long jump and will need to fare well there to qualify for nationals as it is based on place, not a mark earlier in the year.

She currently ranks fifth in the Pac-10 (Stanford's Conference) in the long jump. The four ranked ahead of her are juniors and seniors (third and fourth year) while she is a freshman (first year).

She also has the Massachusetts and New England long jump records and was 2005 and 2006 outdoor high school national champion in the long jump and the 2006 outdoor champion in the triple jump before going on to Stanford.

Her father is former Bermuda national team cricketer Adrian King and her mother Branwen Smith-King won several golds for Bermuda at the Carifta Games as a youngster. The family now lives in Boston.

Michael Donawa

Track and field

800m

Qualifying standard: 1.47.00

Best this season: None

Personal best: 1:49 and some change

Verdict: The former Commonwealth Games athlete is training out of San Diego, California with former 1984 Olympic gold medalist Joaquim Cruz and his Direct Athletes team. National team coach Gerry Swan says that Donawa's hasn't run an 800 metre event yet this season as he is using the 400 and 1,500 metres. Last weekend he ran both events at the UCSD Triton Invitational in San Diego. He ran a 51.69 400 and a 3:59:43 1,500.

He will start running some 800s over the next two weeks. At the very least he'll need to be just off the qualifying standard by fractions of a second to edge out James or Smith

for Bermuda's male athletics spot for Beijing.

Roy Burch

Swimming

100m free

Qualifying Standard: 50.95

Best this season: N/A

Personal best: 51.35

Verdict: Burch broke the Bermuda national records for the 100m and 50m free last season at the World Championships and Pan Am games respectively.

His best event is the 50m free and his PanAm mark of 51.35. He is just four tenths of a second short of the Olympic standard.

He swims for Springfield College in Massachussetts but has not been able to register any official qualifying times this season as events on the U.S. college circuit are in yards rather than metres.

With the college season over he'll be flying out to a series of swim meets on the west coast of the U.S. to try and make the time. His next opportunity to qualify will be in the middle of May. His college times have got better this season, so he is well placed to translate that improvement to a 50m Olympic pool and make the times.

He is close enough to the qualifying standard that he is likely to get invited to compete at Beijing as Bermuda's lone male swimmer. The fact that he competed at the 2007 FINA World Championships works in his favour.

Kiera Aitken

Swimming

100m backstroke

Qualifying Standard: 1.03.86

Best this season: 1.03.83

Personal Best: 1.03.83

Vedict: Aitken broke the Bermuda record at the Spanish nationals in Mallorca a few weeks ago, coming up three tenths of a second short of the qualifying standard.

She has a number of big meets this month, including a trip to the Caribbean this weekend with the Dolphins Swim Club, and will have plenty of opportunity to make the grade.

She's been training in Barcelona for the past 12 months and is beginning to peak at just the right time. She made the qualifying standard and won her heat in Athens 2004, but did not make the latter stages.

At 24, this is likely to be her last Olympics. If she fails to make the grade for Beijing she would stand a very good chance of being granted Bermuda's female swim slot, though most observers believe she won't need it.

Katura Horton-Perinchief

Diving

Qualifying Standard: Finish in the top 34 at World Diving Championships.

Verdict: Horton-Perinchief is the longest of long shots for the games. She needed to finish in the top 34 at the recent World Championships to make the cut and she came just inside the top 50.

However there is a small chance that she could still make it by default if enough people drop out and the Bermuda Olympic Association still view her as a candidate.

In reality, though, she probably won't be going.

Peter Bromby/Lee White

Sailing

Qualifying Standard: Needed to finish in the top four countries (that hadn't already qualified) at the Star World Championships in Miami last week.

Verdict: Bromby missed the cut by a long way in Miami and will not be going to Beijing.

The Bermuda Olympic Association had applied for a wildcard on his behalf but someone would need to drop out before he could even be considered.

Even then it is almost certain that a replacement would come from the same country as the guy that dropped out.

There's still a hope but it's such a slight one that he probably shouldn't be on this list.

Patrick Nesbitt/Jill Terceira

Showjumping

Qualifying Standard: Both have already qualified courtesy of their performances at the PanAm games in Rio last year.

The catch: Bermuda can only send one equestrian to the Games.

Verdict: The Bermuda Equestrian Federation has scheduled a three round jump off between the two in May and June.

Mike Cherry, president of the federation, said: "There are certain competitions they have to go into and compete head to head. Whoever comes out the better of the two, will get the nod."

The events, selected by the Olympic Association, will be in Europe. The cumulative points totals for the pair will be tallied and whoever has the least amount of faults over the three meets will go to Beijing.

Flora Duffy

Triathlon

Qualifying Standard: Must be in the top 50 in the world. The three athletes per country rule means Flora could still qualify if she was slightly lower than that mark.

Wildcard Standard: Duffy has already been granted a wildcard, but still needs to be in the top 125 in the world for that to kick in.

Verdict: Duffy is a dead cert for Beijing. She's currently ranked 53rd in the world, but with several Australians and Americans infront of her she has a defacto ranking of 45 as far as the Olympic qualifying criteria is concerned.

That means, as it stands, she would qualify - with or without her wildcard.

Even if she had a disastrous few months on the World Cup tour before the July cut-off date for Olympic entries, it is extremely unlikely that she would drop out of the top 125 in the world.

Basically, she's going.[[In-content Ad]]

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