I cannot feel proud

Aug 26, 2008 Sports

By Rawle Welch
After reading Aliann Pompey’s response to my missive about how a phone call succeeded in dissolving a positive thought I had about her Olympic performance, a flow of emotional guilt quickly engulfed my body.

But, the feeling of culpability subsequently frittered away after I decided to research her performances over the years and let aficionados of the sport decide if I was wrong in my opinion.

I decided to start from the period of 2002 when she won the gold medal at the Commonwealth Games in Manchester, England beating a quality field that included Ireland’s Lee McConnell and Jamaican Sandie Richards in the process.

Since that time, the Guyanese athlete has been very inconsistent and has not won a medal of note, but instead her performances seem to be in steady decline except for a few notable returns in some low level Meets.

She has had the privilege of competing in most of the major Meets all over the world including the World Championships in 2001, ‘03, ‘05 and ‘07 with no success, while the IAAF World Indoors in 2001, ‘03 and ‘06 and the Olympics in 2000, ‘04, ‘08 are among the other high profile events that she has attended without any positive returns.

Pompey wrote about how the consistent criticisms levelled at Guyana’s athletes from the media has even succeeded in turning away potential sponsors, but her valiant attempt to blame us is one that has no merit.

Instead, my advice for them would be to make even bigger sacrifices than those she spoke about to get the desired results which will leave the potential sponsor (s) with little or no choice but to see them worthy of being advertised and good enough for sponsorship.

It is not my wish to continue the conversation and let it descend into the realm of squalor since in my opinion her response was not entirely intended to be mischievous or an attempt to directly attack me, but I am glad that it did stir a reaction since it is such articles that help to guide us to the source of the problem.

Pompey has been representing Guyana for too long and if problems existed she should have sought to befriend someone in the media fraternity to expose the incompetence of the administration that governs the sport she so loves.

Contrary, she waits until the media highlights the pathetic performances and then reacts which has been the usual retort that has become increasingly hard to understand how she stuck it out for all those years and remained silent.

She spoke about the professional treatment the other athletes enjoy unlike those that represent Guyana and my humble interpretation is that the situation has been ongoing for a long time; well why wait until an independent opinion is expressed then try to silence the writer.

I would like to know whether she has any knowledge about the modest beginnings of many of the top Jamaican athletes, she might be very surprised to hear that they too made huge sacrifices to get to where they are.

It was a matter of their will to succeed that took them to the crest of success and too often our athletes do not display the mental fortitude to reach that zenith.

Pompey, who has been residing in the USA for over six years, is fortunate to be living in a country that offers some of the best facilities for many of the disciplines that are competed in at the Olympics, especially athletics, judging from the USA’s outstanding achievements for many decades.

Whenever, we have information about the lack of performance by any sports administration, we fearlessly report such despite living in a land where if your opinion is construed to be negative it can have serious repercussions.

But, we soldier on, trying our best to report accurately and inform the public. You would have noticed that I tried my best not to mention anything about the performances of Marian Burnett, Adam Harris or Niall Roberts, but I must exit by stating that locally-based sprinter Rawle Green, who has been repeatedly denied the opportunity to represent his native land probably would have done better than Harris. I cannot feel proud when we continue to perform dismally.

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I cannot feel proud

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