ST GEORGE’S, (Grenada Sports) – Grenada’s Prime Minister Dr Keith Mitchell wants Caribbean countries to maximise the use of their sporting talents in the furtherance of regional unity.
In an interview with GrenadaSports, Dr Mitchell said that there is tremendous potential for the region in the area of sports but countries have been hesitant in capitalising on the opportunities and therefore athletes compete in Europe and other parts of the world where they receive lucrative offers.
The Grenadian leader said that there should be no reason why the individual islands can’t stage professional athletic events, acknowledging that some of the best sprinters in the world are from the Caribbean, including Grenada.
“You’ve the Usain Bolt, you’ve the Kirani James and you’ve world stars. Grenada is opening an international athletics stadium. It will make a lot of sense to put on a professional athletics event even if it’s just a cosmetic thing but it brings the stars here and the crowd will come from all over the region,” he said.
“And if that’s replicated around the Caribbean, people are going to come, assuming of course that we get more resolution with the air transport issue.”
“But it seems to me we haven’t attempted to utilise the tremendous resources available in sports activities as I believe the Caribbean has whether its cricket, whether its athletics, whether its soccer (football), any sport you’re talking about I think we have it,” said Dr Mitchell.
In 2009, Trinidad and Tobago was preparing to stage the inaugural Caribbean Games but the spread of the H1N1 virus (Swine Flu) resulted in the cancellation of the five-discipline Games – track and field, tennis, volleyball, netball and boxing.
However, Prime Minister Mitchell wants the business community to invest more in sporting activities, drawing reference to the Indian Premier League (IPL) and the region’s own Caribbean Premier League (CPL).
“In the Caribbean, there must be more investments from the business community, working of course with government, who you may argue should put more too,” he said.
“The individual players have to come to terms that they are from the region and they must make some contribution and sacrifice.”
Dr Mitchell said that in the end, “my own feeling is that they will also benefit financially and otherwise”.
President of the Trinidad and Tobago Olympic Committee, Brian Lewis supports Dr Mitchell’s views on shared responsibilities.
“I believe the Caribbean National Olympic Committees and the Governments of the region can work closer to enhance the environment that facilitates and enable the leveraging of the opportunities for sport to make an even more powerful impact on regional unity,” he said.
