Governments want to control sport with little input – Professor Thompson believes

Feb 24, 2013 Sports

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Kaieteur Sports’ Edison Jefford caught up with distinguished Guyanese, Professor, Emeritus, Dr. Alvin Thompson, who was one of Guyana’s fastest junior sprinters in the late 1950s, and who is the father of Barbados-born sprint legend, Obadele Thompson.
The University of the West Indies (UWI) Professor of History and Philosophy did undergraduate studies at UWI, holds a Masters Degree in Philosophy from London University and a Ph.D. from UWI. His son is married to famed American sprinter, Marion Jones.
Professor Thompson was in Guyana as part of the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports’ 250th Anniversary Commemorative Lecture Series where he delivered on ‘The Berbice Slave Uprising of 1973: Historical and Present Significance’ at the Umana Yana.
But in our interview, Thompson talks athletics in the Caribbean, his role in raising a world-class sprinter, the challenges that ensued, sport and its administration in the Caribbean, and a range of other pertinent subjects of interest to sport. Below is our interview:

Edison Jefford: You are a renowned historian that has produced tons of work. Was there and is there any attempt to produce literature on the history of athletics in the Caribbean?
Alvin Thompson: No, no. I mean sport history is a very important area, but I have dedicated my life to something that I believe is much more important than sports: colonialism and its impact on Caribbean people. People have asked me, but if I do write, it would be a biography of my son.
There is a lot of information that I know about my son; how he got there, his struggles etc. that people don’t know. His struggles when people have accused him of a number of things that are not quite what they say.

Edison Jefford: What about sport and its administration, any thoughts of getting involved at that level?
Alvin Thompson: There is not much scope, certainly in Barbados there is not much scope; their vision is very small and petty about a number of things.
One of the issues we have had to deal with is the issue of control over athlete’s lives. Obadele was the first Barbadian athlete to be declared by the IAAF as an elite athlete. They (Barbados) always wanted him to come, leave the circuit and run at meets like CAC (Central American and Caribbean) to bring home more petty medals and the bigger picture was eluding them. Jamaica don’t send their top athletes, even Trinidad don’t send their top athletes to meets like CAC and the like.
So, he had to say to them one time that he has his sponsors, Mizuno, who are paying him to compete as well, which is done according to the place you get in the race.
There was also the issue of the track there in Barbados. It was way below standards. It was on that track Obadele was injured in 1997. So there is always this conflict of control. I have seen a number of potentially good athletes in Barbados that they handled the wrong way and broken them.
They never made it to the top. That is the problem and you never are going to get past that, never!

Edison Jefford: What you think essentially is the problem because we have similar issues pervading sport in the Caribbean?
Alvin Thompson: Yes I know, it is there in Cricket too. There are a number of issues, but one of the main one is that a number of these people who are handling athletics have never done anything in athletics or in sports. They do not understand what it takes to be an athlete and to win.
They just want to exercise this control. They don’t understand several things, including how to spend money on sport. When you go overseas and you are placed among the other athletes who have everything laid out for them, it does something to you psychologically.
The American team sends a number of psychologists with their team. Rudy Webster talks about this; sport psychologists, to ensure that the athletes mind is not troubled by anything.
Those are the kinds of things that cost money, lots of money. Government don’t want to give you anything, but they want to control you.
That is just funny. They are not spending the money, but they want to make the demands.
People do not understand what it takes to produce, and that is the core of the problem we face in the Caribbean. Look what the British have spent recently to get medals at the London Olympics. They would tell you that the cost to get one medal is in the millions, and they will continue to spend and that is the Government’s input. Not here in the Caribbean.

Edison Jefford: From my own research, I know that you went to Queens College and you were nicknamed ‘9.9 Thompson’ as one of the fastest school boys Guyana ever produced. Can you take us through a bit of your school days in athletics in Guyana?
Alvin Thompson: The 9.9 seconds was over a 100 yards and not 100m and I think that has since been broken, but I did distinguish my craft at Queens College between 1959 and 1960. I went into Queens College in 1958 in the lower sixth form and I was named in 1960 Queen’s College Sports Personality of the Year.
After leaving school I went on to UWI, Mona (Jamaica) where I was sprint champion in 1963.
I went to Britain in 1966 to do my post-graduate work and became the London University sprint champion and British University sprint champion of 1966 and was given the London University purple, which is the mark of distinction as the highest sports honour one could get at London University. I never went to the Commonwealth Games or the Olympic Games or anything like that though.

Edison Jefford: I understand you were very interested in representing Guyana, but the authorities at the time made no effort to ensure that you represent us at the highest level even though you had outstanding performances. Is that true?
Alvin Thompson: For some reason Guyana showed no interest; no one ever contacted me so I gave up athletics in 1967, partly because too I was in France doing post-graduate research. There was no correspondence between myself and Guyana. I never made any effort to contact Guyana, but I know Guyanese were aware of my performances. I think Guyana should have known, must have known, about my performances. I didn’t see it as my responsibility to contact the sports organisations.

Edison Jefford: Since those days you’ve had an obvious passion for athletics, which was demonstrated in the tremendous success of your son. Could you tell us what role you played in Obadele’s career?
Alvin Thompson: I have a daughter who was a brilliant young athlete, but she did not show great interest in going on so I let her slip through because she wanted to do academic work.
Obadele won things in Primary School too, but then he ran at the Caribbean Union of Teachers (CUT) competition around 1989 at age 13 and won the 100m and 200m. Then I took an interest in him. Then he was picked for the Barbados CARIFTA team in 1991 to go to Trinidad.
The finals took place the day after his 15th Birthday, so he had to compete in the U-17 class.
Before the meet, I said to him like a coach, this could be tough etc., preparing him for what I thought was the inevitable licks he would get.
But on April 1, 1991, I would never forget, I was mowing the lawn and my daughter ran out to me and shouted, “Daddy, daddy Oba won the 100m” and I said don’t tell me this, because as you know it was All Fools Day, but then she said no he won indeed and it was a revelation.
He was not a committed athlete; if you didn’t remind him he would go and train etc.
He was not a dedicated athlete, but an event occurred in August 1992 where he was not picked for the World Youth Championships though he wanted to run.
His coach had prepared him for that and when he saw the times that the kids had ran in Japan, he really took it to heart and decided that it was the end of athletics for him. I said to him don’t give up and thought he would get over it but for three months he didn’t train.

Edison Jefford: What did you do about that situation?
Alvin Thompson: I read him the riot act and had a very serious talk with him about his talent and so on. He picked up his shoes and began to train again. The following year, which was 1993, he was 17 years old. He won the Barbados Senior National Championships.
He won the CAC Senior Championships and at several other competitions he did well, including the Pan American Games. He was offered a scholarship in that year and I told him that he has to decide whether he will take it or not. He had offers of two scholarships and he chose to go to El Paso, Texas.
Between 1993-1994, after he got to the States, he broke the world junior 100m record. He went on to hold three world records, including the fastest 100m under any conditions, which was 9.69 after getting out of the blocks last.
Unfortunately for him at the NCAA Championships, he sustained two injuries. He missed out on that in 1996, but in spite of all of that about two months later, he brought fourth in the 200m final at the Olympics behind Michael Johnson, who won in world record time and of course as you know in 2000, he got the bronze medal at the Sydney Olympic Games.
Between 2001 to when he finally quit in 2008, he was plagued by a series of injuries to his hamstring and he was asthmatic, so that affected him badly. He didn’t have the resources to have the best physiotherapist and all of that; at one time he was telling me that he had to pay a physio as much as US$300 for just a massage, but he did pretty well. He had an outstanding career.

Edison Jefford: Was there any point where efforts were made on your part or otherwise to have him represent Guyana? If not, why?
Alvin Thompson: No! Obadelle was born in Barbados. He always wanted to run for his country. He never seriously considered an alternative.

Edison Jefford: Has he (Obadelle) ever visited Guyana?
Alvin Thompson: Just once when he was an U-13 athlete and came for the CUT Games. He never came back here as far as I can recall.

Edison Jefford: Is there any serious attempt from him that you know of to relate to his roots in Guyana?
Alvin Thompson: Let me put it this way, he has very close relationships with his first cousin, which is my brother’s son, who did law in Barbados.
They established a very close relationship. He has met his cousins from here and so on. He knows cousins and his family very well. He never actually came back here.

Edison Jefford: Is Obadelle active in athletics today, in terms of its administration or coaching?
Alvin Thompson: No! I know that he and his wife were to have a coaching job at a school some years ago, but they didn’t take that up. He is doing Law now, which he hopes will be his career (after holding degrees in economics and business).

Edison Jefford: I know his and Marion Jones union is a famed one, how are they doing?
Alvin Thompson: They are doing well. We speak to them often. They have three kids together. I don’t know of anything about them that would suggest there is conflict. They have moved into a bigger place late last year I believe. I could only say that they are doing well.

Edison Jefford: Well back to you. I know that you are a distinguished academic, who could have had distinguished athletic career as well. What happened?
Alvin Thompson: If the times were right. You really could not in my time marry athletics and academics. .

Edison Jefford: That is exactly where I wanted to go!
Alvin Thompson: No, no it was not possible. In my days living in Britain, British tracks were hard; difficult to run on. You could have never done world times on those tracks. You could have beaten people, but not run world class times. The times coming out of Britain were way below world standards. Athletes had to leave Britain to go elsewhere and train. Now the tracks are fast. New synthetic tracks and new shoes and everything are making that possible, but in my time, it simply was not possible in Britain.

Edison Jefford: Have you still an interest in athletics as keenly as those days?
Alvin Thompson: Not as keenly because I find that now whenever people do good times I tend to question whether it is authentic or not and times have improved dramatically over the last 10 years or so, whereas before times used to be cut down by small increments.

Edison Jefford: You don’t believe those times now are humanly possibly?
Alvin Thompson: Yes I do believe they are. I had my doubts but I have come to the conclusion that Bolt is authentic. Bolt is one of two I have looked at and concluded that they are authentic. I have always believed that Kirani James is authentic. I had my doubts initially. It is interesting that of all the 400m runners in the world, James is the first to break the 44 second barrier and they are many, many Americans who have broken that barrier.

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