East Coast athletics coach wants more student-athletes

Jan 25, 2012 Sports

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– bemoans absence of training venue for his club

 

By Juanita Hooper
Raymond Daw, Coach of the Ruralites Athletics Club (RAC), located at Bygeval, Mahaica, East Coast

Demerara, encouraged all athletes to take their academics seriously as, apart from their personal development, it aids in widening their knowledge on the sport.
Daw was speaking to Kaieteur Sport earlier this week about the importance of education, which he says compliments athletics; the Ruralites Coach would have had specific knowledge about the importance of balancing education and sports since his club was birthed at the Bygeval Secondary School.
“Of course I will encourage that all athletes must have an education. I encourage all my athletes to be educated, it is good to take academics seriously as athletes; it helps you in the sport because your knowledge base widens; I support it one hundred percent,” Daw said.
The RAC Coach disclosed some issues that he has to deal with on a daily basis, which affects his club. Apart from the challenge of getting athletes to remain focused on school, Daw indicated that there are more disadvantages than advantages plaguing his club.
The first disadvantage Daw revealed to this publication was the fact that the club does not have a proper training venue to conduct their daily training that mirrored a similar situation at the National Park where several clubs train.
The National Park has been in a deplorable state for quite some time now, especially during the rainy season. But the issue of Daw’s club differs in that his training surface is not grass, but rather the roadways in the Bygeval community.
According to Daw, his club is forced to train on the road since that is their only alternative; the ground at Bygeval Secondary School, which they previously trained on, is always water-logged due to water leakages reportedly from a dam and from high-tides.
The athletes having to use the tar road to conduct exercises amid vehicular traffic expose them to some amount of danger, Daw related.
“The athletes have to navigate the vehicles on the road to train, and this is a major setback since most of the (preparation of athletes) in the year is spent using joggers (sneakers). The only time they (athletes) use spikes is for competitions,” the RAC Coach noted.

The second disadvantage was the concern of transportation. The coach related that sometimes the athletes seek to train at the Enmore Community Centre Ground, but it is usually hard for them to get to the venue because of the difficulties in procuring transportation.
He said it is financially hard for the athletes to secure transportation fees since taxi, which is usually the more expensive means, is their only alternative to return home when the training sessions are completed at nights.
However, despite all those challenges, the club can boast about their gym that their President, Charles Griffith donated which means that they do not have to travel to Georgetown, as was the case before, to access the Michael Parris Gym in the National Park.
He described the 2011 athletic year as an inconsistent one for his club. “It was an up and down year,” he said. Daw noted that two of his most promising athletes were injured; Chavez Ageday had his hamstring injured at the Athletic Association of Guyana (AAG) Under-23 Meet, while Deja Smartt had an injury that the coach preferred to keep in anonymity.
Despite Ageday’s injury, he bounced back on the track later that year (2011) and was selected to represent Guyana in Venezuela at ALBA Games where he contributed to the 4x100m relay team silver medal. He then qualified for the Inter-Guiana Games (IGG) in Suriname where he secured a gold medal in the100m and silver in the 200m.
Daw said that his plans for the 2012 athletic season include attempting the ambitious feat of trying to secure Olympic berths for at least two of his athletes. “I am aiming to get at least two of my athletes to qualify for the Olympics this year,” he indicated.
According to the coach, sponsorship will play an important role in his plan as he try to get some of his athletes to attend meets in Trinidad and Tobago. He said he will be working very closely with the AAG to achieve this goal in particular. It was his view that Ageday and Alton Seafort are good prospects for the London Games.
He said that the success of Winston George, who is a locally-based athlete who qualified for the Olympic Games, has motivated him. “I am more or less happy that a locally-based athlete has qualified for the 2012 Olympics and support and guidance is all that he needs,” he believes.
Wrapping up our interview, Daw said that his club that comprises 10 athletes presently will not be participating in the National Cross Country on Sunday. His club is made up of primarily sprinters with none of them having an interest in the distance event.

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