Baird’s scholarship illustrates Yassin’s deficiency in the study of Sport

Sep 08, 2016 Sports

By Rawle Welch

Upon reading an article captioned ‘GOA pledges $1M yearly for Baird’ in the Guiyana Chronicle

K Juman Yassin

dated Wednesday, September7, 2016, I immediately realised why President of the Guyana Olympic Association (GOA) K Juman Yassin found it impossible to convince six previous Heads of State about the need to invest substantially in sports development.
That pronouncement was a stunning illustration of how ill-equipped he is pertaining to the study of sports even after serving over two decades at the helm of an institution that is supposed to give guidance and solicit expertise for sports development to its affiliates.
Not to deny the hard working Army personnel and national javelin record holder Leslain Baird a reward for his efforts over the years, Yassin now tries to hoodwink this nation about providing a partial scholarship for him to pursue further training and study in Jamaica.
This is a shameful attempt to cop out for what undeniably has been a wretched performance by the GOA Chief Steward after so many years in office, a period that has been typified by failure more than any sort of success.
Here is Yassin recommending a 29 year-old athlete for a scholarship to enhance his ability when his best throw in 2015 was 67.60 metres which incidentally is the national record, but way below the 98.48 metres that Czech Jan Zelezny threw in 1996 in Germany.
Even if you come closer to home, Trinidad and Tobago 2012 Olympics champion Kishorn Walcott, who was born in 1993, has a best throw of 90.16 metres achieved in 2015.
Walcott managed to win a bronze medal at the just concluded Rio Olympics, a feat he said was commendable considering that very often Javelin is one of the disciplines that is rarely identified with consistent winners.
The issue here is that it is virtually impossibble for Baird to improve to a standard 85 metres which is the regular distance that throwers achieve today.
At the age of 29, it is known that outside of performance enhancing drugs use, the average improvement in athletics is usually marginal even after years of hard training and steady competitions.
As I had articulated in a previous article, the GOA Head seems to lack the kind of influence that could command support from major stakeholders.
My suggestion is that Baird be pointed in the direction of coaching since his future as a contender regionally and internationally is realistically difficult.
Maybe, the President quite aware of December being the month of elections tried a maneuver to possibly sway the body of voters, but even if it was an honest scheme, clearly it was not the right one.
Yassin has always used this period to highlight various barriers for Guyana’s poor performances, naming the lack of substantial investment as the chief one, but should we continue to have someone who has repeatedly failed to inspire stakeholders’ confidence for better results.
He can point to no significant success during his tenure, but the acquisition of Personal Best (PBs) which are often times way outside standard times.
This is not to bash our young athletes, who I will continue to represent for their sheer dedication and commitment to hard work, but at the same time, I will remain unfaltering in calling for administrators who under-perform after lenghty periods in office to leave and give someone else the opportunity.
It is obvious that Yassin has become complacement in office, there is no drive to do better for our athletes when one considers the expertise that are available through the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Solidarity Programme.
The isolated travels of a Coach, Fitness Instructor or Administrator to Courses or Seminars are insufficient to Sports Development, especially when it is known that they struggle to impart such knowledge on return.
Yassin is not the only person to blame for the affliction that is affecting Sport in Guyana, but because he leads a very important sports institution that has the technical and administrative connections due to being an affiliate of the IOC, he has to share a lot of the blame for the current quagmire we’re in currently.
Jamaican superstar Usain Bolt had given the world a timeline for his departure from the track even before the Rio Games and it would serve Yassin and Company well to be guided by that announcement.
In summing up the GOA performance it is safe to conclude that it has failed.

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