In a milestone achievement for Caribbean table tennis, all six members of Saint Lucia’s national table tennis squad have secured qualification for the 2024 Central American and Caribbean (CAC) Games, marking the first time in the island nation’s history that both its men’s and women’s teams will compete at the regional multi-sport event. Scheduled to run from July 24 to August 8 in the Dominican Republic, this year’s CAC Games will welcome the Saint Lucian contingent after a strong showing at the regional qualifying tournament held earlier this month in Santo Domingo.
The qualifying event saw all six athletes — Manie Eleuthere, Leshon Francis, DeAndre Calderon on the men’s side, and Cherese Dearcheville, Shatal Charles, Zariana Anthony representing the women — secure top-eight finishes in their respective group standings to advance. Notably, Saint Lucia stands alone as the only English-speaking Caribbean nation to earn spots for both genders in the CAC Games table tennis competition this cycle.
In an interview with local outlet St Lucia Times, head coach Chris Wells highlighted the team’s extraordinary mental toughness throughout the qualifier, pointing to a standout clash against Jamaica as the defining moment of the tournament for his squad. “The match against Jamaica really showed what this team is made of,” Wells explained.
Wells recounted the tense back-and-forth of the upset win: after Eleuthere and Francis claimed a hard-fought victory in the opening doubles match, which was evenly matched from start to finish, DeAndre Calderon took the court against Jamaica’s top-ranked player. After splitting the first two sets, Calderon maintained his composure despite loud, distracting but legal support from the Jamaican bench, digging deep to claim the win and put Saint Lucia up 2-1 in the team tie. When Francis dropped the next match to leave the overall score tied 2-2, Eleuthere stepped up for the decisive final rubber against Azizi, the Jamaican player who had pushed Calderon hard earlier in the day.
The decider was just as dramatic: Eleuthere took the first game, only to see Azizi rally back to take a 2-1 set lead. Eleuthere fought back to level the match at 2-2, and fell behind 7-4 in the decisive fifth game. Calling a timeout to reset, Eleuthere refocused, reeled off consecutive points to force a Jamaican timeout, and closed out the match with an 11-7 win in the final game, securing a 3-1 team victory for Saint Lucia. Throughout the entire men’s team qualifying event, Calderon remained undefeated, winning all three of his individual matches.
The men’s side started their group stage campaign with a narrow 3-2 loss to El Salvador before their upset win over Jamaica pushed them into the top two of their four-team group, enough to secure qualification. For the women’s team, the road to the CAC Games was even more groundbreaking: this is the first time any Saint Lucian women’s table tennis team has qualified for the regional competition. After finishing outside the top two in their group stage, with losses to Colombia (3-0), Trinidad and Tobago (3-0) and a narrow 3-2 defeat to Guyana, the team earned a spot in a do-or-die playoff against Jamaica — and pulled off another upset win to book their place in the main draw.
Following their successful qualifying campaign, both Saint Lucian teams will remain in the Dominican Republic for the next two weeks to compete in the Senior and Junior Caribbean Table Tennis Championships, gaining valuable on-site competitive experience ahead of July’s CAC Games.