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Transition programme necessary for Track and Field
How much of the $139m was spent on schools’ athletics?
By Edison Jefford
Even though there were unprecedented successes for the Athletics Association of Guyana (AAG) at Junior CARIFTA Games earlier this year, a more serious approach is needed in transitioning athletes from the Schools’ Championships.
The athletics association has failed, and will continue to fail, in attracting the best athletes in Guyana at its meets, due mainly to the departure of the prior generation of athletes that once had an overwhelming presence at those events.
General participation in athletic events, therefore, was microscopic except for the schools competition and the IAAF South American 10km Race. The AAG must fill that hole with a strategic transition programme from the schools’ level.
The schools’ athletics contest always bursts with young talent, but what often happens, in the absence of a transition programme, is that those outstanding prospects often return to their various districts and consequentially to obscurity.
It is a sad reality that has prevented the growth of track and field in Guyana for too long. I believe that it is time that a serious approach is taken toward helping athletes from school levels graduate to the senior and national levels.
The schools’ competition is perhaps the only forum where competitive field events can be seen and that does not augur well for the future of the AAG, which has a responsibility to develop all aspects of athletics in Guyana.
There is serious work to be done here if 2010 and beyond is to become productive. There must a concerted effort from the athletics association. First, the local association need the input of serious minds on crafting this initiative.
A transitions programme will require a lot of effort being placed in all sixteen districts of the national schools’ championship. Top performers must get year-round attention aimed at helping them understand their value to a cause.
The cause is to help contribute to a resurgence of local track and field where competitions are truly representative of the best athletes in Guyana, and not just what was pervasive for the past decade-Linden, Georgetown and Berbice.
Rupununi and Bartica are two of the districts that posses a lot of talented athletes but for varied reasons that include transportation; these athletes are never exposed to competing beyond the annual mega schools competition.
A transition programme will ensure that Guyana’s leading school talents get the exposure that will help them move on to greater achievements. From pilot projects with clubs and a lot of grassroots work to seminars, the AAG must toil.
No doubt this initiative has a lot of collaborative underpinnings, however, the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport could seriously have something to identify with in 2010 when a revelation is made on how they spent the budgeted amount for sports.
But for now, the Ministry must tell us how much of the $139m they claimed to have been spending on sport and its development in 2009 was actually spent on schools’ athletics and how much was spent on AAG programmes.
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