Guyanese, West Indian and international cricketer, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, is set to be bestowed with an honorary doctorate from the University of the West Indies’ St Augustine Campus in October. This award will crown his other off-field accolades which include Guyana’s third highest award, the Cacique Crown of Honour (CCH) which he received in 2009, and several Sportsman of the Year awards.
This impending recognition of achievement by Shiv Chanderpaul casts some spotlight on the importance of the role of sports in the Guyana economy. During the previous administration, sport was managed under the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport, but with the change in administration in 2015, Culture, Youth and Sport have become a Department within the Ministry of Education, with each section headed by a separate Director.
And while the strong link that sport has to education has to be acknowledged, it does seem that to have one minister of education, culture, youth and sport is quite the load to bear, particularly as education is a very large, and very important sector in itself in any country. By contrast, in Barbados there is a Ministry of Culture, Sports and Youth, while in Jamaica, the Ministry of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport obtains. Trinidad and Tobago have twinned sport and youth with the Ministry of Sport and Youth Affairs.
Anyone following sport in the Caribbean would be privy to the superior sustained regional and international success of sportsmen and women from the Caribbean islands as compared to their Guyanese counterparts. That Guyanese sportsmen and women are blessed with an abundance of natural talent and ability has been aptly demonstrated over the years, but what always seems lacking is an institutional framework that can develop and hone those talents and skills into successful and sustained regional and international competitiveness.
The Caribbean has been producing top class athletes for many decades now, particularly sprinters such as Trinidadian Hasely Crawford who won Olympic Gold in 1976, and fast forward to the world renowned Usain Bolt of Jamaica with his unprecedented nine Olympic medals earned over three Olympic games. On the other hand, Guyana has only seen occasional flashes of brilliance from its athletes and sportsmen, such as Aliann Pompey and Niall Roberts, and our country has not been able to build on those past successes nor mould available talent into successful competitiveness.
The two reasons most put forward for this inability of Guyanese athletes, sportsmen and sportswomen to achieve the kind of success as their Caribbean counterparts are the overall lack or inadequacy of sports facilities and/or institutional support for athletes especially when they travel overseas. Despite some degree of upgrading of sports facilities that have taken place over the years, these upgrades did not come with any institutional strengthening of the administration of the particular sports disciplines. The National Track and Field facility at Leonora and the National Aquatic Centre at Liliendaal, both on the East Coast of Demerara, are both welcome developments in sporting infrastructure, but these developments seem to lack the attendant administrative framework to make them most effective and beneficial to those they are intended to help – the nation’s athletes, sportsmen and sportswomen.
For example, it is not uncommon to see an event occurring at either of these and other sport facilities across the country, but with the only spectators being the participants themselves. The purpose of sporting activities becomes moot without spectators, and any event planner worth their salt knows that sensible and appropriate advertising is necessary to ensure public participation in any event, even competitive sporting events. Athletes are driven by the crowd’s reaction, even when negative, and many record- breaking performances may not have occurred in the view of empty stands.
Additionally, the neglect of coaching and coaches in sport in Guyana has contributed to the decline or uneven performance of many of our sports disciplines. Just recently too, the Captain of the Golden Jaguars national soccer team commenting on the decision to appoint a Jamaican to the position of Head Coach of the senior team made the following heartfelt but telling observations that are symptomatic of the overall approach to sport in Guyana and is not limited to football alone:
“The requirements for the national team head coach position eliminated a lot of potential Guyanese coaches by asking for the PRO license qualification. When you factor in that there is no domestic Professional League, which leads to no domestic PRO players or PRO coaches and the current national team only has 3/4 players categorized as full-time professionals it doesn’t quite add up. We are requiring our head coach to have the same level qualification as England and Germany without having a 10th of the same infrastructure.”
Development of sport in Guyana cannot be done in a piecemeal fashion. Development of the athletes themselves means investing in the development of coaches and in the physical infrastructure of the various sports disciplines, always with the attendant administration for managing the sports facilities, the coaches and the athletes/players themselves. Many of the successes of our sportsmen and sportswomen have been primarily due to grit, determination and natural talent. And even after they have put in an exceptional performance on the international stage there is no administrative structure back home that is willing or able to build on that performance to the benefit of the particular athlete and those waiting in the wings for their opportunity.
It may be that those in authority here don’t see any economic value in sport, but if the UK is any example, the sport economy contributes £6 billion to the Treasury – a return of £5 for every £1 invested by government.
Congratulations Shiv.
