Close the Sports cemetery

Aug 12, 2012 Sports

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By Edison Jefford

Various writers, aficionados, enthusiasts and even concerned citizens have lamented and in some instances, exposed, time immemorial, the tragic natural of sport development in Guyana in so far as it has become seemingly clichéd to lend voice to what appears to be an inflexible phenomenon.
But, in the words of Martin Carter in his poem: ‘Looking at my hands’: “No! I will not still my voice! I have too much to claim-”. Stakeholders, who are seriously concerned about the development of sports, must not still their voices. It is time for widespread demands for change.
It is obvious, following Guyana’s virtual embarrassment at the London Olympic Games that had creditable performances from every other Caribbean country, that there is an absence of a plan to propel Guyana onto international podiums at the highest levels of sport.
We, and when I say ‘we’ I mean all those who are stakeholders in one form or the other, whether writers, enthusiasts, aficionados and/or entrepreneurs, must collectively renounce what I believed started many years ago and was proliferated in London. General apathy in moving Guyana ahead as a regional and international force in sport must be renounced.
We must no longer still our voices. There is too much at stake, too much to claim; administrators cannot parade on a tour at the expense of the embarrassment of a nation. The graveyard of talents is filled with athletes, who given the right impulsion from administrators and Government, could have gone on to repeated success internationally.
In the continued absence of a clear plan and purpose, Guyana’s role in London was reduced to being mere participatory. Any nation worth its national pride and identity, which sport uniquely connects domestically and globally, will not allow this charade to continue.
Tai Payne, who I must publicly express condolences to on the loss of his mother; Oliver Phillips, Kwame Ceasar, Dion Barker, Adlin Ralph among several other track athletes; and Shen Fung, Dorian Massay, Carlton Narine, Christie Campbell, among the field athletes must have watched the London Olympic Games and at least two others before with grave indifference, knowing that with attention from relevant administrators they could have been on an Olympic podium.
Julian Edmonds, Gavin Hope, Colin Boyce, Gem Barrow amid loads of other athletes outside my generation must have also felt that indifference derived from unnecessary self-pity and conferred regret for being unable to maximise their God-given potential.
I have referenced athletics because it is the culture I grew up in, being the son of arguably the best sprinter this country has ever produced. But the graveyard of athletic talents extend to every discipline with individuals who internalise on a daily basis what they could have been if attention was given to them to facilitate their progress and development.
In the height of my father, the late Elton Jefford, career, he toppled the best in the Caribbean with victories over Trinidad and Tobago’s 100m Olympic Gold Medallist, Hasley Crawford and Jamaica’s Donald Quarrie. He even out-sprinted a top American sprinter, who was the number one printer in the world at the time (Sport statistician, Charwayne Walker will reveal details of these performances in his analysis sometime in the future).
But such was the athletic prowess emanating from Guyana from my father onwards. When my father was injured in the Caribbean, it unfortunately forced the withdrawal of a full scholarship to Idaho State University in the United States of America.
Yes, Guyana has had lots of athletes going overseas to take up scholarship offers. However, the results returned from those athletes have been untoward because of the regrettable situation that is conferred upon them; a situation that forces them to make the critical choice between athletics and academics in the absence of substantial support from the administration, and in the need to secure a professional future.
It is a choice that always looms, but our athletes are forced to make them too soon. What Jamaica has done, for instance, is to ensure that their athletes in US colleges are supported so that they are able to maximise their athletic potential without the early worry of work; Jamaican athletes train and study without the stress of financial sustenance.
Jamaica has long become the athletic standard of the Caribbean; their models, their attitude, their nationalism and sport culture has permeated other Caribbean countries. Bahamas, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados and now Grenada are enjoying the results of establishing meaningful ways in which athletes are supported to become the best they can be.
I have been in many circles during these Olympics and I have heard all the negative comments on our athletes. Some enthusiasts missed the boat completely when they laid the blame squarely at the feet of our athletes, who perform with little or no support from Government. It is a farce to believe that Guyana will get results without support mechanisms.
Aliann Pompey has been to four Olympic Games for Guyana, from Sydney, Australia to Athens, Greece to Beijing, China to London, England over the last 12 years; Pompey could have been a medallist in Athens in 2004, two years after she won a gold medal at the Commonwealth Games in England.
However, following her Commonwealth performance, Pompey was merely the recipient of the ‘Sportswoman of the Year’ award. Unfortunately, that award was not followed with substantial financial support that would have enabled Pompey to avoid having to work in New York, train and compete at blue-ribbon events.
It is not an easy process to work fulltime, train and compete at the highest levels. It is adverse to professional sports. Notwithstanding the meagre Olympic Solidarity grant, Pompey never got the kind of sustenance required to ensure she give Guyana an Olympic medal.
Pompey did the best she could have done in the circumstances. She relit hope for Guyana when she won a silver medal at the 2010 Commonwealth Games. Yet, there was no support from this administration to ensure she goes out with a last hurrah in London.
Suffice it to say that Guyana’s sport culture or lack thereof is responsible for the death of too many talents. Suffice it to say that when racial bias, prejudices and preference guide administrators’ investment and interest, the outcome can only be international embarrassment as what obtained in England over the last two weeks.
The dawn of a new era seemed imminent when the sod for the Synthetic Track and Field Facility was turned. Time has progressed from the sod-turning occasion to the foundation infrastructural works to accommodate the track, but nothing else has happened.
Phase 1 of the facility that was expected to take a few months to be completed has now taken an unprecedented year and a half and counting. The weather was blamed for the delay. But the track further underlines how sport is approached at the administrative echelons.
Guyana’s first synthetic facility was placed at Leonora, a non-traditional athletics community to begin with, bypassing options such as the National Park track, which is in need of urgent works and which many athletes frequent for training daily. The National Park or any other location in central Georgetown would have been ideal for the country’s first synthetic track.
If the plan was decentralisation, then Linden, given its rich athletic history, would have also been perfect. Buts lets accept that ‘half a loaf of bread is better than none at all’, and conclude that the synthetic track will be built after all; it would have been practical to hasten this process so that an ill-fated record can at least see some sort of rejuvenation.
But then again there is not an impressive resume for timely completion of critical sport projects; reference is made to the Aquatics Centre that took just about five years to be completed and still had several important components missing such as the warm-up pool, international lounges for guests and perhaps spring-boards for diving as standard components.
Lack of serious impetus and widespread apathy toward non-constituent disciplines is preventing Guyana from Olympic medals. Stakeholders must point their fingers in the right directions. It is time for the closure of the overfilled graveyard of sport talents.

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