Olympism

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.

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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.

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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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Under normal circumstances the Annual Carifta Congress would have been incident-free. At the Annual Carifta Congress in Providenciales, Turks and Caicos, in 2007, however, it was a different matter. IAAF president, Lamine Diack, turned what would otherwise have been his address to the delegates into a tirade on the NACAC president, Amadeo Francis, informing them that while he thought that the latter was his friend he had lent his support to Minos, the Greek, to challenge him for the presidency of the IAAF. The gathering was obviously shocked and Francis sought to suggest that it was at a time when Diack had indicated that he was no longer going after the presidency; that he was going to retire.

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