Netball Jamaica (NJ) is taking strategic steps to secure the Commonwealth Games gold medal in 2026, announcing plans for a pre-tournament training camp in the United Kingdom tailored to its elite national squad, the Sunshine Girls. The 2026 Games, hosted in Glasgow, Scotland, are scheduled to run from July 23 to August 2, and organization leadership says the UK-based camp is the most logistically sound setup to put the team in peak competitive position.
A large share of Jamaica’s top senior netball players currently compete in professional franchise leagues outside the Caribbean, most notably Australia’s top-tier national competition. The final match of Australia’s 2026 season is not set to conclude until July 5, just a few weeks before the Commonwealth Games get underway. Hosting the camp in the UK eliminates the need for these overseas-based athletes to make an extra long-haul trip to Jamaica before traveling on to Scotland, simplifying travel logistics and allowing the entire squad to acclimate to the cooler Northern European weather and time zone well in advance of tournament play.
“It’s more practical to have the camp overseas because we need everyone to acclimatise over there,” Karen Baugh, president of Netball Jamaica, explained in an interview with the Jamaica Observer. All overseas-based players have already been named to the 2026 Commonwealth Games long squad, and while domestic-based athletes continue training with coaching staff based in Jamaica, Baugh noted the organization’s top priority is assembling the strongest possible roster for Glasgow.
Funding for the pre-tournament camp falls entirely to Netball Jamaica, despite the Jamaica Olympic Association covering the team’s travel costs for the Games themselves. Baugh projected that the 12-player training camp will cost between 8 million and 10 million Jamaican dollars, a sum that covers all accommodation, group meals, and local transportation for the squad during the camp. To bridge this funding gap, Netball Jamaica has launched a public-facing “adopt-a-player” sponsorship program, which invites local and international businesses to support individual team members and cover a share of the camp expenses.
“We have to fund that camp by ourselves. Sponsors are welcome. We are always struggling where funding is concerned and we are accustomed to rising above that,” Baugh said.
Jamaica’s Sunshine Girls claimed a silver medal at the 2022 Commonwealth Games held in Birmingham, and Baugh made clear the organization’s goal for Glasgow is unambiguous: upgrade that silver to a gold medal finish. “We got a silver medal the last time and so our hope is that we’ll continue to perform at a very high level. Obviously we are always going for the gold, we want to be at the top of the podium and we will continue the work through this tournament and the World Cup next year to put out the best team that we can,” Baugh stated.
Addressing recent back-to-back series losses to top-ranked England and Australia, Baugh acknowledged that the large defeat margins were disappointing for both the team and netball fans across Jamaica, who have grown accustomed to consistent top finishes from the national side. “I know the results overall of those games were not good and, you know, people are not accustomed to the Sunshine Girls losing by those type of margins,” she said.
Even amid the disappointing results, however, Baugh highlighted key takeaways that bode well for the 2026 Games: a number of promising young rookies got valuable high-level international match experience, and emerging talent showed clear potential to contribute to the senior squad moving forward. “When you look at some of the individual work, we do see some new talent coming through and it will be up to us to continue to work and give them opportunities because we want them to keep Jamaica’s flag flying high and doing the best we can to come out on the podium of any tournament we participating in,” she concluded.