Getting athletics on track

LAST WEEK'S visit to Jamaica by a TT delegation to witness first-hand its annual ISS Grace Kennedy Boys and Girls Championships, popular known as Champs, is a step in the right direction. The TT delegation included Sports Minister Shamfa Cudjoe, Education Minister Dr Nyan Gadsby-Dolly, National Association of Athletics Administration George Comissiong and other officials, suggesting a multi-pronged approach to developing something similar here.

The visit is an acknowledgement that TT's sporting officials do not have all the answers – nor should they be expected to. Jamaica has been dominating the international track for well over a decade. At the Carifta level, their supremacy is also evident, indicating a pipeline present for the next generation of athletes to take the world by storm.

For years, sprinting legend and multiple Olympic medallist Ato Boldon has criticised the "amateur" approach to track and field in TT and the governance of the sport by the NAAA. He accurately predicted TT would not win an Olympic medal in Tokyo 2020 as he lamented that other Caribbean nations, other than Jamaica, had surpassed our programme.

Something needs to change. The covid19 pandemic did not help either.

Comissiong told Newsday that talented athletes are slipping through the cracks in TT, and local clubs are none the wiser. A focus on track and field in the schools could shine the necessary spotlight to identify who has that natural talent, and with proper coaching help them achieve their full potential.

Make no mistake, the support of the public and corporate TT are necessary to achieve these goals.

It is disheartening to say but no sport in TT can full a full stadium currently. Even a name change from the Pro League to the Premier League has done little to attract football lovers to the games.

More discussions are needed and a comprehensive plan devised to achieve the necessary buy-in.

TT will not replicate a Champs overnight, but Rome was not built in a day.

It is no secret that track and field needs a shot in the arm.

Once shouldering the burden of earning medals at the Olympic Games, TT's athletes did not come close at the 2020 edition in Japan.

The era of men's 100m sprinting with Richard Thompson, Marc Burns, Keston Bledman and Emmanuel Callender has gone, and new talent needs to emerge. TT's absence in the starting blocks in the men's 100m event at the 2020 Olympics paints a picture of how far we have fallen.

Commonwealth 2018 gold medallist Michelle-Lee Ahye, 30, has been flying the flag in women's sprinting but has been unchallenged locally. Several years ago, Kelly-Ann Baptiste, 36, and Semoy Hackett, 34, were all battling for national supremacy.

No TT sprinter made it into the women's 100m final in Tokyo.

As the Carifta Games 2023 gets under way in Bahamas, we call for more support from all stakeholders to nurture our young champs.