Winston Crooke
Born in Birmingham, England in 1957, of parents Stanley Crooke from Sandy Point (St Kitts) and Lylith Amory from Gingerland (Nevis), the 3rd of 8 children, Winston moved to Nevis in 1991 to open a Windsurfing School.
Got my first fleet of (6) bikes and started to rent them from my windsurfing shop based at Oualie Beach Hotel, but quickly realized that I could earn more money by offering guided tours as well.
1997/8 – I had heard of a Mountain bike race happening on St Kitts so quickly formed the Nevis Cycle Club with my brother and some friends trained for a couple of weeks, it was our first race and a disaster, but after training in earnest a few of us went over to Tortola to represent Nevis in the Caribbean Cup mountain Bike race series, I took 3rd place for my efforts in the Veterans downhill race section, Nevis very first medal for cycling, I was so proud. Due to one island not being able to host the championships I was asked if I would like to host it, I said yes, and the Caribbean Cup came to Nevis, where we kept it for the next four years, Nevis was on the map and I had even been crowned Veterans Downhill Champion of the Caribbean in 2001.
The team began to enter the St Kitts Triathlon as the bike part of the relay team event, once again acquitting ourselves well, before deciding to enter as individuals in the mini tri series they held over there. I had the idea to start doing triathlon right here on Nevis, first with a mini-series and then a full Olympic/Sprint distance event which went well and we were off on a new adventure, Triathlon.
2001/07 – I played a major role in developing the triathlon subculture both here and within the Caribbean hosting tournaments here at home and taking the Nevis team off island as with the C/Cup to make a name for ourselves around the region, with our triathlon becoming one of the best events in the region attracting athletes from overseas as well.
I was in communication with the UCI the world governing body for cycling, to get the federation reinstated and moved from St Kitts to Nevis, I was learning on my feet and after the end of the St Kitts Triathlon i also negotiated with the ITU World governing body for triathlon for me to move the Triathlon federation also to Nevis. (These two SKN governing bodies were until recently the only sport federations not based in St Kitts)
I was having fun both as an athlete and as president of two sports federations, giving me the opportunity to help raise the profile of St Kitts & Nevis abroad, Nevis was host for the very first time of the OECS Cycling Championships, I competed in the individual road race and the Team time Trial as well as organizing the event. I represented SKN at the ITU Triathlon Age group World Championships in Hamburg, Germany. I completed my first Half Iron Distance Triathlon.
2008 – I was pushing to bring a Continental Cup Triathlon to our shores, this event brought many of the best triathletes in America, Canada, South America and the Caribbean region all vying for points as this was an Olympic year. It was a huge success with 138 athletes from 25 different countries setting a new benchmark and firmly establishing triathlon with the most important audience, the Nevis public. I also completed my second half- ironman on our neighbor island of St Croix, a grueling 2km swim, 90km bike and 21km run event, at the same time I had conceived and created the OECS Triathlon Championships.
I decided to take on the mission to build swimming up as an activity and a sport, approaching the then administration with the idea of building a swimming pool and incorporating swimming lessons into the schools' curriculum, I was blissfully unaware of how long this ‘mission’ would last.
2009 – I took a team of four athletes to compete at the Cycling World Championships in Mendrisio, Switzerland. It was an amazing experience as our uniforms alone gained us a huge local fan base and drew the attention of the worlds cycling press.
2010 was a huge year for my swimming ‘mission’, having contacted the regional and international bodies for swimming I was able to have the newly created SKN Swimming Federation recognized by FINA, the world governing body, and attended my first regional CCCAN swim meet increasing my education in this new sport.
2011 - I was introduced to the Monaco based TriStar group, and after flying to Paris, sold them the idea of hosting their first event outside of Europe on the tiny island of Nevis. TriStar111Nevis being successfully completed in November of that year. I negotiated with TriStar was to have Chris ‘Macca’ McCormack at the inaugural event; this proved to be a boon, as he also fell in love with the island and despite the demise of TriStar Chris returned to Nevis in November 2013 with his own brand of triathlon the MaccaX Nevis Triathlon.
I continue to promote sporting events here on Nevis as part of my contribution to our general tourism product, one of the key events is the Nevis to St Kitts Cross Channel Swim, the 2014 event attracted over 200 swimmers and has become one of the ‘must do’ open water events in the region, as well as attracting interest from the rest of the swimming world.
Over the last eight years I have taken on a very personal journey as I learnt new skills as an ITU Triathlon official, in 2013 I officiated the ITU Long Distance World Championships in France, the European Championships in Turkey, and this same year I was selected to referee the ITU Triathlon event at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. I was then asked to referee at the Edmonton ITU World Championships grand finale in September, where I also captained the SKN triathlon team.
2015 - I received my level 2 official certification from the ITU, and took the largest triathlon team ever (7 athletes including myself) to the Triathlon Age Group World Championships in Chicago. I also completed my first full Ironman, 3.8km swim, 190km bike and a marathon 42km run, which I did in Cozumel in November.
2016 - I decided to fly to Panama and take a FINA coaches certification course, it was in Spanish but I was able to get through with some out of class help from the course leader, thus I became the first FINA qualified coach of the federation. With this new knowledge I negotiated with FINA to host SKN’s first of 3 annual instructor courses which was held at Oualie Beach Hotel on Nevis, and we had 11 persons attend the course that was strictly focused on how to teach children.
In April i was again the Technical Delegate for the Barbados ITU sprint triathlon, which was an honor and privilege for me as athletes vied for the last Olympic points on offer. I represented SKN at the Caribbean Championships in May, taking third place in my age group.
2017 turned out to be far more exciting than I could have expected, I got to go to Cuba twice, having been invited to officiate at their 3rd ITU triathlon event in February and once for a cycling congress, in March we had the Cross Channel swim, breaking all kinds of records. In April I returned to Barbados as the TD, with the largest field of athletes male and female the event ever had. I officiated the ITU triathlon World Championships in Rotterdam and the ETU European Triathlon Championships in Turkey.
I took on the task of training 10 Special Olympic athletes in an endurance program to prepare them to compete at the SO World Games in Abu Dhabi in 2019, and included Open Water swimming, cycling and triathlon, which was the newest sport for Special Olympics.
2018 - The highlight was that I was selected to be an official for Triathlon at the Commonwealth Games to be held in the Gold Coast, Australia. I was back racing in earnest and had a good result in the Antigua Rohrman triathlon, the Cross-Channel Swim was a huge success with record numbers, I podiumed again at the Caribbean Championships.
2019 started with a bang, I attended the Special Olympics World Games as TD for the very first SO Triathlon, and represented SO SKN as the cycling team coach, we had taken 2 OW swimmers, 2 Triathletes and 2 cyclists from the 3yr endurance training program, bringing home 7 of the 17 medals SO SKN won over there. The Cross Channel Swim was again huge with records broken both for the fastest time and for the number of competitors attending, plus I had been selected to officiate at the Pan American Games Triathlon that was held in Lima, Peru. Other triathlon highlights were taking SKN athletes to compete at the Age Group World Championships in Lausanne, Switzerland whilst attending the ITU Congress, then officiating at the Paratriathlon World Cup in Alanya Turkey. The year was rounded out by finding out I had finally achieved my personal Olympic dream, as I was selected to be an official at the Paralympic Games Triathlon event in Tokyo 2020.
2020 has been a year dominated by Covid 19, but prior to this I was able to assist with the early development of the ‘Swim to Win’ program, I competed at my first triathlon in quite a while in Antigua, and was fine until it came time to run! and very importantly found out we had been granted the funds to build SKN’s very first dedicated swimming facility, a 25m in-water pool, which we plan to have finished by the end of August. The saddest part for me is that because of Covid the Olympics has been deferred until 2021, in the meanwhile we are making great strides with swimming, having recently put on an event to honor the 50th year since the MV Christena disaster, we had 4 swimmers make the 9 km swim from the wreck site to Pinney’s Beach. I was recently informed that I had been selected to be the TD for the Special Olympics USA Games Triathlon event in 2022, The adventure continues.
Post Covid and normal life resumed in 2022, my primary goal was to create a National Youth Swimming Team after being invited to attend the OECS (regional) swimming competition in St Lucia, using ‘in water’ 25m pool as a base I brought in a coach to raise the standard of our identified swimmers and instructors. This was the formation of the very first SKN National Swim Team and we took 4 youngster’s to compete, who all acquitted themselves very well posting personal bests all round.
2023 became a pivotal year for me personally as I made the decision to step away from my involvement as the head of both Triathlon and Swimming Federations, I also sold the Cross Channel Swim and took a sabbatical, returning to the sport of Triathlon as an official attending the 2024 Para Olympic Games Para-Triathlon event in Paris, which was stunning all round, rounding out my officiating duties in September that same year as Technical Delegate (head official) for a regional Triathlon Development Cup in beautiful Tobago.
