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Pompey must not become an unsung hero

Oct 19, 2010 Sports

By Edison Jefford
Guyana sent arguably one of its largest teams to the Commonwealth Games that wrapped up in India last Thursday, and of the contingent only one medal was won, a silver, compliment of the seasoned campaigner, Aliann Pompey in the Women’s 400m.
This accolade not only begs for national commendation, but also exemplifies years upon years of personal sacrifices from an athlete to keep the Golden Arrowhead flying abroad. In any stretch of the imagination, Pompey deserves better than her present treatment.
When it was announced that Pompey had won a bronze medal, there was time afforded Guyana’s Olympic Association, the Athletic Association of Guyana and the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport to offer official congratulatory messages to the athlete.
That was not done and after Pompey was then promoted to a silver medal after the second placed Nigerian, Folashade Abugan was slapped with a doping violation, the appropriate institutions got more time to officially comment. There has been none to-date.
This is nothing short of a national shame. Here is it, we have the only medallist for Guyana from the Commonwealth Games and those national institutions have not offered even simple messages of congratulations to the athlete on her second such achievement.
Pompey also won a Commonwealth Games gold medal also in the 400m event in Manchester, England in 2002. Her silver medal performance eight years after in New Delhi makes her the only Guyanese athlete with two Commonwealth medals in any event.
While at the personal level there would have been some applause for the athlete, Kaieteur Sport is in no possession of any message from the Olympic association, athletics association and ministry formally extending congratulations to Pompey for the feat.
For someone who has a fulltime job in New York, has no major sponsorship contract and has not received any form of substantial reward from her home country, Pompey has done commendably well to at least remind people that there is a country called Guyana.
This is not intended to be a lengthy opinion, but a brief reminder to the Olympic association, the athletics association and the sports ministry that they have all missed an opportunity to show that they are really serious about both sports and athletes.

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