Latest update April 17th, 2025 9:50 AM
The death of an Olympic dream
– sun sets on Fortune, Greene
By Edison Jefford
An endowed athletic ability may be all an individual has going for them in life! When that ability is not maximised through the right channels, that person often reclines in feelings of disappointment, self–pity and emptiness.
As Alisha Fortune sat, crouched in a sofa, in the interview lounge at Kaieteur News on Monday, she valiantly tried to withhold tears in the presence of her two sons. The top local sprinter was successful in the attempt.
Fortune, a 32–year–old single parent, is one of two locally–based athletes that tried to make a career out of athletics but as time rapidly slips away, the two athletes are beginning to realise that their dreams were mere shadows.
Watching a dream die is always an experience marked with melancholy. For Fortune and fellow sprinter Rawle Greene, watching their hope of an Olympic debut reduced to nothingness will easily drift into their mental annals.
They thought they had the stuff to compete at the highest level. Maybe they did! But as modern track and field has proven (with women now easily clocking sub–11 times and men sub–10 in the 100m for instance), Fortune and Greene were basically attempting the impossible.
The reality of their drive toward the Beijing Olympic Games struck like a ton of bricks when both Fortune and Greene were left outside the qualifying standards in a series of track meets in neighbouring Trinidad and Tobago.
Competing more consistently in the 100m, Fortune had a personal best time of 11.7 seconds while Greene turned in 10.4 seconds. Both athletes’ marks were beyond the Olympic ‘B’ standard of 11.3 and 10.27 respectively.
The question they now face is where do their illustrious careers go from here? Both athletes were hoping to give the Olympic Games a final shot at the 2008 Central American and Caribbean (CAC) Games.
However, the Athletics Association of Guyana (AAG) opted for a full overseas–based team ignoring Guyana’s foremost senior athletes and multi national senior 100m and 200m champions during the last decade.
“Still we (Fortune and Greene) had a chance at CAC, we were looking forward to that but no one contacted us. Instead, they (the AAG) sent overseas based athletes,” an obviously disheartened Fortune told this paper during the interview.
The duo is of the opinion that athletes based outside Guyana should attend local trials before selection to national teams as opposed to just being “picked up and sent to these Games ahead of us”.
Still on the question of their future, Fortune and Greene were recently top performers at the Hugh Ross Bodybuilding Classic. Was that a Sign of a new career? Both athletes are hesitant in dismissing, altogether, their track careers.
For Fortune, next year’s Caribbean Games that will be held in Trinidad and Tobago is big on her horizon while Greene is yet to make a definitive decision, choosing rather to remain in the National Park where he and Fortune trains.
Greene is 32 years old as well. The 2012 London Olympic Games will put them at age 36, which is well beyond the peak for the sport. Maybe they are thinking of a shot at the Masters’ Track and Field Games. Still this is not clear.
From lack of facilities and the misadministration of the AAG to personally funding their athletic careers, Greene and Fortune are timeless examples of the struggles of passionate Guyanese athletes, both junior and senior.
Many came this way before but not many have survived! The AAG are likely to add two more athletes to its vastly populated graveyard. The local athletics body, since 1992, have a lot to be accountable for in the sport.
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