Bahamas News
Pauline Davis story Running Sideways A Winner Fit for a Movie Screen. Feb 7 2022
By Diane Phillips
#TheBahamas, February 9, 2022 – If Bahamians are looking for heroes, they don’t have to look very far.
Just over-the-hill, as they call it here, to a densely populated community known as Bain Town where the strong survived and all the churches combined could hardly hold the confessions and prayers of their congregants, and where in that hardscrabble hood, to a girl with grit.
Her name was Pauline Davis. She started running sideways, usually barefoot, carrying buckets of water from a public pump, looking over her shoulder to stay steps ahead of the boys who chased and frightened her. Sometimes she beat them back by running straight up a palm tree.
Pauline ran so hard and so fast and so consistently she ran her way right to the top of track and field.
Now, in a new book with award-winning author TR Todd (Pigs of Paradise, The Man Behind the Bow Tie), the
fearless competitor tells her story, revealing fears, excitement and the cruelty and just a whole lot of bad luck piled on top of good.
The book is called Running Sideways: The Olympic Champion Who Made Track and Field History. The foreword is by Lord Sebastian Coe, an Olympic champion himself and, since 2015, president of the World Athletics Association. He calls Pauline’s achievements – competing in five Olympics, sprinting to Gold twice in the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia, once in the 200m individual and with the Golden Girls 4 x 100m – Herculean, given the path she trod to get there.
“But it was not until reading Running Sideways that I had insight into the boulder-strewn nature of that path, from the adversity and social challenges of her youth bolstered by the undying love of her parents through to the unwarranted battles that she’s waged and won with myopic sports administrators,” writes Coe, referring to episodes where Pauline had to scale the wall of the stadium to run the field, training to represent her country in regional and global events. Like everything she did, she did more than others. There was almost no event she could not run, competing in the 100m, 200, 400m and 4×100 relay.
Publisher’s Weekly praised the book and the story it tells of a young runner who had to save her shoes for school and church who went on to become a two-time Olympic gold medalist, the first to win individual gold in sprinting in the region and the first woman of colour to serve on the World Athletics Council.
There is such depth to the character who is Pauline, tough as nails and soft as lamb’s wool, that all Todd had to do was tell the story of her life honestly. It is a story worthy of a movie script, a big screen full feature film that millions around the world of every age will relate to – and dream of doing the brave and courageous thing.
Todd was a perfect choice to be narrator for a story which lifts the spirits without masking the dirtier truth of parts of the world of sports. The two became friends when he was business editor of the Nassau Guardian and AP correspondent for The Bahamas. A runner himself, though not competitive, Todd was fascinated by the what he heard about Pauline and when he organized a fund-raising race in Exuma after leaving The Bahamas physically but maintaining a business interest, he asked her to be the patron. She accepted and has done so for the past four years, helping to raise tens of thousands of dollars for Exuma youth and scholarship programs.
At 55, and still in excellent condition, Pauline is retired from competitive running and from the Ministry of Tourism where she worked as a brand ambassador for 20 years. Today, a new brand ambassador, multiple Grammy award winner and international rock superstar Lenny Kravitz added his admiration for the trailblazer.
“Pauline Davis is a brilliant example of Bahamian excellence and perseverance,” wrote Kravitz this week. “I remember as a youngster, my Bahamian Grandfather having us go out as a family to watch and support Pauline and the other Bahamian athletes at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. Pauline later mesmerised the world in Sydney 2000 with her gold medal winning Olympics performances and her star continues to shine today through her mentorship of young Bahamian athletes.”
The entertainment superstar joins a long list of all-star endorsements from those in the track and field community, including four-time Olympic gold medalist Michael Johnson from the United States, two-time Olympic champion and former world record holder in the 100 metre Donovan Bailey from Canada, and two-time silver medalist Juliet Cuthbert-Flynn from Jamaica.
Published by Rowman & Littlefield, the book is now available on Amazon and the publisher’s website. Books will soon be available at local stores here in The Bahamas, with a special book signing event planned for March 8th at Goodman’s Bay.
PM: Project delivers on promise and invests in youth, sports and national development
GRAND BAHAMA, The Bahamas — Calling it the fulfillment of a major commitment to the island, Prime Minister Philip Davis led the official groundbreaking for the Grand Bahama Aquatic Centre, a facility the government says will transform sports development and create new opportunities for young athletes.
Speaking at the Grand Bahama Sports Complex on February 12, the Prime Minister said the project represents more than bricks and mortar
— it is an investment in people, national pride and long-term economic activity. The planned complex will feature a modern 50-metre competition pool, designed to meet international standards for training and regional and global swim meets. Davis said the facility will give Bahamian swimmers a home capable of producing world-class performance while also providing a space for community recreation, learn-to-swim programmes and water safety training.
He noted that Grand Bahama has long produced outstanding athletes despite limited infrastructure and said the new centre is intended to correct that imbalance, positioning the island as a hub for aquatic sports and sports tourism.
The Prime Minister also linked the development to the broader national recovery and revitalisation of Grand Bahama, describing the project as part of a strategy to expand opportunities for young people, create jobs during construction and stimulate activity for small businesses once operational.
The Aquatic Centre, he said, stands as proof that promises made to Grand Bahama are being delivered.
The project is expected to support athlete development, attract competitions, and provide a safe, modern environment for residents to access swimming and water-based programmes for generations to come.
Angle by Deandrea Hamilton. Built with ChatGPT (AI). Magnetic Media — CAPTURING LIFE.
The Bahamas, February 15, 2026 – For the better part of three years, Bahamians have been told that major Afreximbank financing would help transform access to capital, rebuild infrastructure and unlock economic growth across the islands. The headline figures are large. The signing ceremonies are high profile. The language is ambitious. What remains far harder to see is the measurable impact in the daily lives of the people those announcements are meant to serve.
The Government’s push to secure up to $100 million from Afreximbank for roughly 200 miles of Family Island roads dates back to 2025. In
its February 11 disclosure, the bank outlined a receivables-discounting facility — a structure that allows a contractor to be paid early once work is completed, certified and invoiced, with the Government settling the bill later. It is not cash placed into the economy upfront. It does not, by itself, build a single mile of road. Every dollar depends on work first being delivered and approved.
The wider framework has been described as support for “climate-resilient and trade-enhancing infrastructure,” a phrase that, in practical terms, should mean projects that lower the cost of doing business, move people and goods faster, and keep the economy functioning. But for communities, that promise becomes real only when the projects are named, the standards are defined and a clear timeline is given for when work will begin — and when it will be finished.
Bahamians have seen this moment before.
In 2023, a $30 million Afreximbank facility for the Bahamas Development Bank was hailed as a breakthrough that would expand access to financing for local enterprise. It worked in one immediate and measurable way: it encouraged businesses to apply. Established, revenue-generating Bahamian companies responded to the call, prepared plans, and entered a process they believed had been capitalised to support growth. The unanswered question is how much of that capital has reached the private sector in a form that allowed those businesses to expand, hire and generate new economic activity.
Because development is not measured in the size of announcements.
It is measured in loans disbursed, projects completed and businesses expanded.
The pattern is becoming difficult to ignore. In June 2024, when Afreximbank held its inaugural Caribbean Annual Meetings in Nassau,
Grand Bahama was presented as the future home of an Afro-Caribbean marketplace said to carry tens of millions of dollars in investment. What was confirmed at that stage was a $1.86 million project-preparation facility — funding for studies and planning to make the development bankable, not construction financing. The larger build-out remains dependent on additional approvals, land acquisition and further capital.
This distinction — between financing announced and financing that produces visible, measurable outcomes — is now at the centre of the national conversation.
Because while the numbers grow larger on paper, entrepreneurs still describe access to capital as out of reach, and communities across the Family Islands are still waiting to see where the work will start.
And in an economy where stalled growth translates into lost opportunity, rising frustration and real social consequences, the gap between promise and delivery is no longer a communications issue.
It is an inability to convert announcements into outcomes.
Angle by Deandrea Hamilton. Built with ChatGPT (AI). Magnetic Media — CAPTURING LIFE.
A hardline strategy that reduced murders, gunfire, and collateral deaths
The Bahamas, February 8, 2026 – What happens when police stop routinely granting bail to high-risk suspects and aggressively execute outstanding warrants? In The Bahamas, the answer in 2025 was fewer murders, fewer gunshots, and safer communities.
The Royal Bahamas Police Force arrested 4,337 individuals on outstanding warrants last year, ensuring suspects were brought directly before the courts instead of being released back onto the streets. At the same time, police significantly curtailed the use of police bail for high-risk and repeat offenders, particularly those already entangled in violent disputes.
Police Commissioner Shanta Knowles said the shift was informed by hard lessons from previous years. Intelligence reviews showed that
many homicide victims were not random targets, but men already wanted by law enforcement and — critically — by other criminals. When released on bail, those individuals often became targets themselves, triggering retaliatory shootings that spilled into neighbourhoods, roadways and public spaces.
By keeping high-risk suspects in custody pending court appearances, police say they disrupted that cycle — removing both potential offenders and potential victims from the streets.
The impact was stark. Murders declined by 31 percent in 2025, falling from 120 in 2024 to 83, the largest percentage decrease in homicides since national tracking began in 1963 and the lowest murder count in nearly two decades.
Police leaders say the strategy also reduced the collateral damage that had increasingly alarmed communities. Innocent residents had been caught in “sprays of gunfire” as targeted attacks unfolded in residential areas, at traffic stops, and in public settings.
Gun-violence indicators reflected the change. Gunshot reports fell by 35 percent, while incidents detected by ShotSpotter technology declined by 29 percent, confirming that fewer shots were being fired across the country.
“Gunshots ringing out and cutting through our peaceful paradise were down remarkably,” Commissioner Knowles said, attributing the improvement to decisive enforcement, tighter bail practices, and sustained pressure on offenders.
Police also intensified enforcement against breach of bail conditions, charging and detaining more suspects than in any previous reporting period. Officers say the approach removed the opportunity for repeat offending while matters were before the courts.
Police leadership said the results go beyond statistics. By limiting bail for high-risk suspects and executing warrants at scale, the strategy saved lives, protected bystanders, and restored confidence in public safety.
In 2025, fewer people were hunted, fewer bullets were fired, and fewer families were left grieving — a shift police say was no accident, but the result of deliberate, hardline choices.
Angle by Deandrea Hamilton. Built with ChatGPT (AI). Magnetic Media — CAPTURING LIFE.
