Riverdale Baptist senior D'Nia Freeman, competed for the Bahamas this past week in Grenada at the 2016 Carifta Games. While her Riverdale Baptist teammates were racing at the Central Invitational in Prince George's County on Saturday, Freeman was living it up in the Islands life splitting 55.5 seconds on opening leg for the silver medal 4x400 meter relay squad for the Bahamas.
Earlier in the weekend, Freeman ran a state leading time thousands and thousands of miles away from Maryland in the opening round of the 400 meter prelims at the Carifta Games in a 56.62 clocking. Ironically, the performance bumped her Riverdale Baptist teammate Stephanie Davis off the state leaderboard as Davis had won the 400 at the Central Invite in 56.98.
This was not the first time that Freeman has made a long trip to the Caribbean to compete internationally. She was fortunate enough to run for the Bahamas in the 4x100 meter relay at the IAAF World Relays last spring as well. Her story and experience there was chronicled last spring by MileSplit national here. She also ran her personal best for 400 meters at the Carifta Games last year of 55.76 and another sub 56 clocking finishing 5th (55.78) in the finals.
She just missed making the finals this year finishing second in her prelims heat and having the 9th fastest time overall on the outside looking in of being among the 8th finalist. The strong opening leg to get her squad out well and an awards podium experience was a nice consolation prize on the final day of competition.
While her dad is an American born citizen, her mother being a native of Bahamas has allowed Freeman the opportunity to compete internationally both at the junior and senior level for the Caribbean country. If she continues her development into her collegiate career next at East Carolina University, Freeman could possibly make an Olympic and/or World Championship team for the Bahamas some day.