By Juanita Hooper
Minister of Culture, Youth and Sport Dr Frank Anthony said his ministry has adopted a long-term Canadian approach to the development of track and field adding that he is hoping for this approach to become a reality.
Dr. Anthony made the disclosure whilst delivering the feature address at the Athletics Association of Guyana awards ceremony Friday night at the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) building, Thomas Lands.
According to Dr Anthony he is hoping that with the collaboration of the AAG that the approach, dubbed the `long term athlete development approach’, can become a reality.
Dr. Anthony also revealed that his ministry was willing to bring athletic coaches here but once again the AAG would have to be involved in the planning.
“We have been talking to a number of countries where we have bilateral relationship and some are willing to send coaches but again we do not to bring coaches here if we do not have counterparts to work …we have experienced where we brought in international people to work and because the host association was not ready or did not have programmes in place, then a lot of the time that the international coaches spent here was not spent properly,” he explained.
The Minister was of the opinion that administrators do not collaborate in the interest of the athletes and insisted on a change to this approach pointing out that there is a strong need to recognize the roles and serve the athletes.
“Very often the sporting discipline suffers because the administrators are bickering and we do not want that to have moving forward,” he said.
He also suggested that the AAG should change the time for the staging of the annual nationals Schools track and field, cycling and swimming championships.
“My understanding is that it is at the end of the cycle for the rest of the countries in the region,” he said.
Dr Anthony said his government’s commitment to athletics was well known as they are in the process of completing the synthetic track at Lenora; the facility will be the first of its kind in Guyana.
He explained that the money is extracted yearly from the budget to construct the facility which sits on 43 acres of land.
“Some may say that it is taking too long but every year we would budget a certain amount of money and because we have a master plan of what the track should look like, every year we budget for an aspect of the track so that we can get closer to completion,” he said.
He urged the AAG to assemble their house properly and create programmes that would be available when the track is completed.
“We can have one approach, where the ministry can possibly hire a few coaches and bring in a few others and run our own programmes but that would not necessary be of benefit to everyone.
“The approach that we are looking for is a more collaborative one, with the full involvement of the athletics association because the local body here can tap into their regional and international affiliates and get them to send experts to us. So that we can run training programmes where we can coach people and work with our athletes and eventually get them to the standard so that they can really perform at a high standard internationally.”
Aubrey Hutson, President of the AAG said that the present council in conjunction with the Ministry of Sports and the world governing body will be ensuring that the awarded athletes excel as it leads up to the Olympics since the association looks forward to Guyana scoring medals at such games.
He promised that the AAG will be building on the good things from the previous council as outstanding athletes were produced during that year. “This council of 2013 going forward intends to build on the good things that happened in 2012. We have fine athletes and we do not plan to cast them aside because they were from last year. What we plan to do is make them better and make then run faster.
“With that in mind we must look back at where we went wrong and where we went right and try to correct the wrong things that we would have done in 2012 and make sure that come 2013 we can produce a much better performance that everyone that is involved in the development of the sports and have an impact of what happens in track and field can say yes a good job was done or no a good job was not done as you need to change this and that.”
Charles Corbin, representative of the Guyana Olympic Association (GOA) said that the Olympic house always believed that the highest medals would come from athletics and donated a cheque to the AAG in aid of the CARIFTA team.
Cleveland Forde of the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) and Alika Morgan were the male and female athletes of the year.
Cleveland Thomas of Running Braves Athletics Club, was named the runner-up male of the year while Alisha Fortune also of Running Braves and Natasha Alder of the Police Progressive Youth (PPYC) tied for the female runner-up athlete of the year.
Running Brave sprint ace and Guyana’s Junior 400m current record holder Stephan James won the junior male athlete of the year with Jevina Starker winning the female category. Alita Moore, the AAG National Junior 100m champion and Nathaniel Giddings, both of PPYC were runner-ups in the junior female and male category.
PPYC sprint sensation Tevin Garraway walked away with the youth boys’ athlete award after producing sterling performances during the 2012 season. Ernesto Thomas an athlete of the newly formed University of Guyana Track and Field Club took the runner-up position. Andrea Foster won the youth girls award with Cassey George of Linden the runner-up.
Julian Edmonds coach of the Running Brave Athletics Club was adjudged coach of the year and Cheryl Sam the officials of the year.
The most promising athlete of the year award was given to Shaquille Smartt.
