Says Donald Duff
It is difficult to form an assessment of the Guyana team’s performance at the recent XIX Commonwealth Games.
The results will show that Guyana ended joint 29th out of 71 countries along with Papua New Guinea and Seychelles.
Australia with 177 medals all total, inclusive of 74 gold, 55 silver and 48 bronze medals, was the top country with hosts India occupying second place with 38 gold, 27 silver and 36 bronze medals.
England, Canada and South Africa round out the top five countries at the 2010 games.
Given the current state of sports locally it is difficult to see this country becoming a sports superpower at the Commonwealth Games at least not in the foreseeable future.
It would be accurate to say that at the Commonwealth Games level, Guyana’s athletes with the exception of Aliann Pompey and Nicolette Fernandes, are just a bunch of amateurs competing against to a large extent, professional sportsmen and women.
Australia, England, Canada and South Africa are countries that do very well at the Olympic Games and it is roughly the same core of athletes who took part in India with some of them being world champions as well.
So to expect results other than what was achieved is to be totally unrealistic. No investment will obviously yield no tangible results.
It is not that those in charge of sports in Guyana are not aware of the sums of money pumped into sports in the developed countries, of the vast number of facilities that are available and of the technological advancement in coaching and other strategies. They are!
And it is not that they are also not aware of the fact that many of the athletes who won medals at the Commonwealth Games have been rewarded financially. They are!
But there has been no attempt from anyone to suggest that Pompey should be rewarded for her silver medal performance.
There has been nothing but criticism of the performances of the local athletes although many of them performed above expectations.
Rifle shooters Ransford Goodluck and Mahendra Persaud finished fifth in the pairs competition while the Guyana table tennis team placed 11th and was the highest placed Caribbean team.
Given the level of competition it was doubtful whether athletes Adam Harris, Jeremy Bascom and Cleveland Forde would have been able to medal and since the implementation of the new type of scoring local boxers have always found it difficult to win medals at major competitions.
Being Caribbean champions is one thing but being World Champions is an entirely different ball game as the local rugby team found out and inspite of the distractions of the games village beating teams like New Zealand, Canada and Scotland was always going to be a tall order.
Fernandes, because she is now a world ranked player, might dominate regional and other competitions but there were other professional squash players like herself at the games which is why Pompey’s silver medal performance is of such immense value and importance.
One wonders then, why is it that Pompey’s achievement is not being lauded? Why is it that efforts are not being made by the Guyana Olympic Association (GOA) or the Athletics Association of Guyana (AAG) to start a fund to reward her for the honour she has brought to Guyana by not only her gold medal 400m run in 2002 but her silver medal performance eight years later?
Come next year, Guyana will be participating at the Pan American Games in Mexico while in 2012 there will be the London Olympic Games.
There needs to be drastic changes in the approach to sports development if Guyana is to build on Pompey’s performance in India and win more medals at those two major events.
It can be done but it will need vision and funding and the cooperation of the government, the private sector, the GOA and the national associations/federations.
But for now the people of this country must show that they are serious about our sportsmen and women by rallying around efforts to reward Pompey.
The GOA and the AAG should start the ball rolling by setting up a fund where business houses and the public can donate funds to let Pompey know that this nation is fully behind her and that the people of Guyana recognize her outstanding achievements for the Golden Arrowhead and would like to reward her for her efforts.
