Owen Andrew BURKE

Andrew Burke’s international sporting career began in water polo and he played for Barbados in the 1967 Pan-American Games in Winnipeg and in two Central American and Caribbean Games tournaments.

From a sailing family, Burke was also a boat-builder and regularly competed in boats of his own design with a large amount of success around the Caribbean. Twenty years after his first appearance at the Pan-American Games he returned as a sailor in the 1987 Games in the USA and went on compete in the Finn class at the Barcelona Olympics. He was diagnosed with cancer in 2001 and although he lost an arm to the disease he recovered to compete again and win a number of regional events. In 2008, after learning that the cancer had spread to his heart, he completed a solo voyage around the island of Barbados in support of the Barbados Cancer Society. He eventually succumbed to the disease in April 2009.