Cudjoe willing to participate in future of sport discussions

MINISTER OF Sport and Community Development Shamfa Cudjoe is ready to take part in a discussion with national sporting organisations (NSOs) on establishing plans to improve sport.

This comes after general secretary of the National Association of Athletics Administrations (NAAA) Dexter Voisin on Monday, called on the Trinidad and Tobago Olympic Committee (TTOC) and all sporting bodies to have a meeting to chart a way forward for TT sports.

Voisin and Cudjoe made these remarks following TT’s medal-less Olympic campaign at the Tokyo Games. This was the first time TT concluded a Summer Games without an Olympic medal since the 1992 Barcelona Games.

“It’s always a good time to do that (discussion) and we are always open to working with the national governing bodies, and we have been working with them,” she said.

It was also the first time, in 33 years, that Team TTO fielded an Olympic delegation which did not include a men’s 100-metre sprinter – the last being at the 1988 Games in Seoul, South Korea.

Voisin, in a recent interview, opted to refrain from commenting on TT’s four-time Olympic medallist Ato Boldon’s pre-Olympic statements which accurately predicted the nation would come up empty-handed at the Games.

After the quadrennial meet, and confirmation on his prediction, the ex-national sprinter posted to Facebook and took local sporting administrators to task.

On TT’s Olympic performance, Boldon said, “Same dotishness, same jokers talking a set of annual rubbish, same 1970s thinking, same personal agendas, same relay coaching roulette, same pretending sh---- Carifta/junior results are ok, same ‘we not changing a damn thing, this good enough’.”

He added, “We have been left behind by so many countries at the highest level of sport because we are stuck doing the same AMATEUR things and expecting a different result. It pains me to see where things are now.”

Cudjoe however, called on NSOs to continue developing their plans and programmes and deliver them to the Sport Company of TT (SporTT).

While she acknowledged the need for healthy discussion among the nation’s sporting administrators, and even athletes, the minister also commended specific NSOs for staying in touch and continuously unveiling new plans to develop their respective sports further.

“Those NSOs who are developing plans and programmes; that is what SporTT is there for, to help with these aspects. You have cricket (TT Cricket Board) going in, sitting and coming up with programmes at SporTT. Football, the TT Football Association, has done that as well,” she said.