Another chance gone a-begging

Sep 28, 2008 Sports

By Rawle Welch
Another opportunity to boost the development of sports and our athletes was lost when we failed to accept an invitation to attend the sixth World Forum on Sport, Education and Culture.

The forum, under the motto “Sport and Education for the Now Generation” concluded yesterday in Busan, Korea.

According to President of the Guyana Olympic Association (GOA) K.A Juman Yasin when contacted earlier in the week by Kaieteur Sport via telephone questioning whether or not we will be represented at the Forum, he responded by saying that he had no knowledge of the meeting so therefore Guyana will not be represented.

According to information received, this forum was funded by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) through its Olympic Solidarity Programme of which Guyana is an affiliate member so it seems surprising that the President had no prior knowledge of the event.

A source familiar with the operations of the IOC disclosed that usually, all National Olympic Committees (NOC) would get correspondence and it is indeed startling that Guyana did not receive an invitation to attend the meeting.

Since that call was made, no news related to the subject has emanated from the GOA which immediately brings into question their commitment to advance the development of sports.

There simply was no response from the GOA; one would have thought that a release from them clearing up the issue would have been forthcoming, but once again they held true to form, not even mindful of offering any information as to whose fault it was.

It was another golden chance that we failed to take advantage of and what is even a more disturbing phenomenon goes on where administrators of sport here continue to show little interest in grabbing any of the opportunities that pass our way which could be used to benefit our athletes.

Already way behind in every aspect of sports development, managers of sport institutions inexplicably continue to isolate Guyana from all the advancement that is taking place in the world of sports.

Only recently we had three tennis coaches return from a Coaches Conference in El Salvador and they all unanimously echoed sentiments about the lack of support from their association and others that receive assistance to help in such situations.

Another unpardonable situation that will soon rear its ugly head is the fact that unless we receive special treatment, we will struggle to send any team to the inaugural Caribbean Games due to our poor performances even at the regional level and this must be attributed to poor administration at all levels of sports governance.

Meanwhile, topics discussed at the Forum included the educational potential of events like the Youth Olympic Games, as well as how to educate athletes for life after their sporting career.

Other matters dealt with the doping scourge and how to effectively deal with youngsters and which are successful methods to implement nationwide Olympic education programmes for children and young people in the countries of future Olympic Games. Those and other topics were addressed during plenary and parallel sessions.

Speakers came from the Olympic family, governmental and non-governmental institutions, the United Nations system, universities and media groups.

The forum also got input from young people first hand; one session featured only youngsters on the podium.

Forum participants also had the chance to watch the opening ceremony of the fourth Busan TAFISA World Sport for All Games on Friday.