In spite of the recent success of sprinters Stephan James and Jevina Sampson, their training has been less than perfect since they have no alternative venue than the sub-par track at the National Park.
Both athletes who received awards from the Athletics Association of Guyana (James, Junior Athlete-of-the-Year and Sampson, Most Promising Young Athlete-of-the- Year), train for the Running Brave Athletic Club which trains in the National Park, Thomas Lands.
The National Park’s inner circuit opposite the park’s tennis court is the home of the Running Brave Athletic (RBA) Club and the Royal Youth Movement (RYM) Sports Club and is also the training venue for athletes of the Guyana Defence Force (GDF).
However, both James and Sampson are forced to train on the far-from-perfect terrain which has deteriorated significantly over the past few years.
Athletes using the inner circuit have to navigate their way around tractor ruts and other bad patches on the ground which can cause injuries while coaches have to alter their programmes in order to minimize the risk of injury to their athletes.
Coach of the RBA club, Julian Edmonds stated, ”The track is getting worse, if we are doing 600 metres they have to run half way, turn back and complete it instead of going around the whole track… they cut the ground and leave huge tractor marks but we are trying to get our work done, that’s all we can do,” he lamented.
Female sprint queen Alisha Fortune who trains with RBA as well, in a recent interview with this newspaper, was also skeptical about training on the track as she was quoted as saying in the interview: “I’m looking to be smarter this year because last year I had some injuries that hampered me, so I will be looking at my download of work along with my training venue, the National Park which is getting worse and I have picked up my injuries from constantly running there.”
Meanwhile, while the government saw it fit last year to resurface the outer circuit of the National Park, there is an evident and equally pressing need to renovate the inner circuit of the track, until the synthetic track becomes a reality on the West Coast of Demerara.
