The Carifta Games gold medalists should be supported

Apr 30, 2014 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Two of Guyana’s female athletes were outstanding at the just concluded Carifta Games. While as expected, Jamaica dominated those championships, Guyana did extremely well to have gained the gold medals that it did.
Two of those medals were secured by an athlete who trains in Guyana. This is an amazing feat considering that this country is not known to have either world class facilities or top-rated international athletic coaches.
An athletic track is still under construction. The locally–based athlete that did so remarkably well at the Games would have therefore had to train in less than ideal conditions. Her performance at these Games shows that we are capable of producing top-class athletes, who just need further training and exposure to graduate to world champions.
The Carifta Games are no Olympics, but in those events that Guyana secured Gold medals, the mighty Jamaicans and Bahamians were humbled. This is a sign that if the two athletes that brought glory to the Golden Arrowhead are properly managed, they can become forces to be reckoned with in two years’ time when the Olympics Games are held, or in three years’ time at the World Championships.
But for that to happen, these young rising stars need to be exposed to high-level training and to be provided with the resources to improve their times and develop their skills to the fullest.
The overseas-based athlete obviously has a better chance of receiving this sort of training, but it will take some doing for the locally-based athlete to become a world champion if she remains in Guyana. The fact that she will later this year be able to train on the athletic track that is under construction at Leonora should not be seen as the aiding her quest for Olympic glory.
Trinidad and Tobago has long had the best sporting facilities in the Caribbean. These, however, never translated into a long line of athletic successes for that country’s athletes. Indeed a stronger case can be made that what regional athletes need is exposure to North American training and competition in order to become world champions.
Jamaica has had a long tradition of athletic success, but much of their recent success is due to the exposure that their athletes receive by participating in international competitions and training overseas, including in collegiate championships in the United States.
Guyana’s top performers at the recent Carifta Games should therefore be supported to train overseas. One of them is already doing so. Plans should be made to have the locally-based athlete undergo training within the United States.
That, of course, involves her either winning an athletic scholarship to one of the top universities or colleges in the United States, or being given support locally to train in the USA.
The problem is that everyone looks to the government to provide this support. But the government has to be concerned with the overall development of sport, and cannot be seen to be concentrating all its efforts and resources on a few athletes.
These two young ladies have done Guyana proud at the Carifta Games. They deserved a better welcome than they have so far received. If they were Olympic Gold Medallists they would have been likely to receive lucrative endorsements from overseas corporations. Their stock would have risen appreciably. And when this would have happened the local business community would have been tripping over each other to be gaining photo-ops with these athletes.
The business community in Guyana loves to be associated with winners, but most of them fail to provide the support needed for these athletes to become winners.
If you study carefully the support that is provided for athletes in Guyana, a clear pattern emerges.  The bulk of the support given to sporting organizations and sporting competitions comes from the large corporate sponsors. Without the support of these large sponsors, sport would be dead in Guyana.
Despite there being thousands of small firms which can afford to spend a few thousand dollars each year to help our local athletes, support for sport in Guyana continues to be dependent on the government and those large corporate sponsors.
However, when our local athletes do well, many small businessmen want to have their pictures appear alongside these successful athletes. They want to share in the glory. But ask them to put their hands in their pockets and sponsor a talented athlete and you will hear all manner of excuses, especially how business is not doing well.
The business community, especially non-corporate interests and small businesses need to do more, much more, to support sport in Guyana, and especially to provide support for our talented athletes so that they can develop their skills and be assured of financial backing when the time comes for them to jet overseas to receive the necessary training to become future Olympic stars.
The business community should be lining up to give sponsorship to Guyana’s gold medallists at the Carifta Games, but you can bet your last dollar that it will be the large corporate sponsors who are already overextended in the support they are giving to local sport, who will be the ones that will have to step up to the plate to help support our Carifta Games champions.
It should not be that way. But that unfortunately is the reality of a selfish and self-serving business class.

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