Let better sense prevail

Apr 25, 2009 Sports

By Rawle Welch
The Athletic Association of Guyana (AAG) and the management of female distance athlete Alika Morgan have both been caught in an entanglement caused by the apparent lapse they made to send her to the recently concluded Carifta Games with an ankle injury.
The news of her disappointing performance has caused much rumpus in the media; add to the embarrassment suffered by all concerned with her career.
The articles have been incessant and many in the field of sport feel it is time that better sense prevail and the young star be allowed to resume her line of business in peace and tranquillity.
It is not to say that such occurrences should not be highlighted, but the consistent manner in which it is being painted in the dailies must be causing more pain not only to her feet (the bone of contention), but her psyche as well.

It is right for the media to demand an explanation from the sport’s authority as to the reason(s) for her dismal showing, especially since she is rated among the premier distance runners in the region, in what was to be her last appearance at the Games.
They have a duty to present the information received to the readers, but to continuously underline the issue was not only unhelpful, but more importantly what it might have done was damage the athlete’s reputation as well as present the state of affairs within the AAG.
It must be noted that both the AAG leadership and Morgan’s Coach did admit the error in judgement and it is now time for all to move on and assist our best distance athlete in getting back on the track as soon as possible.

One way to do so is to secure the best possible medical opinion and then treatment so that the injury does not resurface in the future.
As was stated in an article in this paper yesterday headlined ‘Morgan could miss Colorado Springs stint’, the AAG seemed to signal its willingness to implement measures that would ensure no such scenarios emerge in the future and to assist Morgan in securing medical attention from a neutral panel of doctors to have an MRI Scan done.

This bit of news is uplifting, but will they endeavour to retain such services for all our touring athletes so that there is a general feeling of comfort and equity among coaches, parents and aficionados in the sport.
It would be supportive to mention that the mighty Jamaicans took a few slightly injured athletes to the same Games, but because of their superior coaching expertise, the athletes were guided in a direction that would not have worsened those injuries.
Some of them were only registered for one event even though they had made the qualifying times for more and that is because the respective coaches felt that it was not in the best interest of the athletes’ career to risk aggravating the injury further.
The point is even the Jamaicans arrived at the Games with members not totally fit so Guyana is not an exception.

Morgan remains one of our best hopes for the future if not internationally at least regionally.
Let us provide the avenue to improve our coaches’ knowledge of the sport by way of exchange programmes with our regional counterparts as well as form a union as the rest of the Caribbean has done with the University of the West Indies (UWI) Caribbean Sports Medicine Centre (CSMC) so that we can detect injuries and make accurate diagnosis which could prevent disappointing performances due to such reason(s) in the future.

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Let better sense prevail

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