Sports Comment
The recent success of sister Caricom country Jamaica at this year’s World Athletic Championships which ended recently in Berlin, Germany again brings into question the state of the sport in Guyana.
Jamaica took second place behind the mighty United States of America team a tremendous feat for such a small nation.
The Americans ended with 10 gold medals to the Jamaicans seven and an overall tally of 22 medals to 13 by the Jamaicans.
While most Guyanese might have been rooting for Usain Bolt and Shelly Ann Fraser who won the male and female 100m respectively at the World Championships, the thought “When will our athletes be able to produce such performances” surely must have been at the back of their minds.
Since Allian Pompey’s 400m gold medal at the 2002 Commonwealth Games Guyana has not tasted that type of success at a major international meet.
At the Berlin Worlds, Guyana was represented by Adam Harris, Pompey and Marian Burnett.
They did their best.
However, without the necessary support winning medals at Olympic and World track and field championships will always be a tough ask.
At this juncture track and field in Guyana, like so many other sports, is in need of a major overhaul.
The Athletic Association of Guyana needs to undertake a holistic revamping of the structure of athletics in Guyana strengthening the club system and placing emphasis on young athletes within the school system.
Then there is the annual Inter-Schools track and field championships which often suffer from a lack of financial support from the government and the absence of proper facilities.
Rather than waiting until the last moment as is the norm the Guyana Teachers Union should set up a committee to look into the staging of this year’s event placing emphasis on the areas of discontent in the past.
Grass a thing
of the past
There has been much talk about the government’s vision 2001 plans which include the building of an Olympic-size swimming pool at Liliendaal and two major sport complexes.
However, in order for Guyanese athletes to be competitive on the world scene there is need for a synthetic track for our athletes.
It was significant to note the presence of three Trinidadians in the field of the 100m men’s final a feat not altogether surprising since Trinidad and Tobago can boast of the Hasley Crawford and Dwight York Stadiums, two top class facilities for track and field.
Our athletes are still running on grass. Small wonder that at the Pan American juniors two weeks ago in Trinidad most of our athletes were seen “chasing in the flock.”
But not even that indignity it seems can force the government to pump money into not only track and field but sports in general.
Local sports associations receive no grant nor funding from the government unlike what happens in other countries.
Some, however do receive some sort of assistance from their world governing bodies and the Guyana Football Federation is a prime example.
The GFF gets an annual subvention of $250,000 from its parent body FIFA and has stated that that amount is not enough to run its programmes.
So one can see that the poor state of sports in this country is tied directly into the fact that sports associations are unable to run developmental programmes be-cause of a lack of funding.
The recent Value Added Tax system otherwise referred to as VAT, implemented by the government has brought in much needed revenue to the government.
Is it too much to ask that some of that money go towards assisting our sportsmen and women in their attempt to bring glory to Guyana. We think not!