by Keith Joseph
On Saturday 7 January Team Athletics St Vincent and the Grenadines hosted its annual Awards Ceremony for achievements in 2011. The Ceremony came one month late but was nonetheless an important occasion for the development of the sport in this country.
This week we reproduce as our weekly Column my entire presentation as the President of the organisation.
The last year was filled with challenges that threatened the future of sport as we had come to know it.
We have had the matter of the problems at the level of international football, the seeming uncontrolled growth in the use of drugs in sport, the rearing of the ugly head of racism in sport and the conflict between the West Indies Cricket Board and several of its players. Read the rest of this entry »
The year now concluding has proven to be a rather interesting one for sport around the world. We have been treated to some of the best alongside some of the worst. In the end, given the deleterious consequences for sport the bad seemed to have outdone the good.
We are nearing the end of yet another year in sport in St Vincent and the Grenadines and one cannot help but bemoan the low performance standards across the board.
The News newspaper, clearly the nation’s leader in sports coverage, has, since being established in 1989, been chronicling the performances of Vincentian sportspersons across the globe. It is this document, more than any other in this country, that as been there every time, encouraging our athletes even as they watched the performances decline, leaving us so often behind our neighbours in the various sporting encounters.
Over the years there has been much discussion on the matter of the absence of world class performances of many of our athletes and teams. Vincentians frequently accuse the various national sports associations of failing to keep the Vincentian flag flying at regional and international competitions and make comparisons with other Caribbean countries and their achievements. In the anxiety to point accusing fingers however few take time to engage in astute analysis of the realities impacting the athletes and teams of this country. In this Column we attempt to address the issue of support structures for our athletes.
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