2008 – Make or break year for Vincentian sports

Swimming has a place reserved for one male and one female athlete regardless of standards established by the International Federation (IF)

Our boxers would have their qualifying tournament in Trinidad and Tobago in the early part of this year. Our Taekwondo athlete has already faltered at the qualifying stage and there seems little hope that any other sport would be represented at the Games.

The athletes would need to have access to better training and competition opportunities if they are to qualify and go on to do well at the Olympic Games.

With the slender resources available to us at home we ought to count ourselves fortunate that we do have athletes who have been able to display their talent enough to go on to better things.

It is important that the authorities make available the funding necessary for those athletes who are in with a chance of qualifying and those who have already qualified to be exposed to top level training and competitions ahead of the Games in Beijing.

Our people are always anxious about the performance of our athletes at this level but seem to take little time to appreciate the horrendous conditions under which our premier athletes are expected to train, develop and make it to the ‘big league’.

For a population of just over 100,000 and with the gross imbalance in the provision of sporting facilities, we are doing relatively well but way below the vast potential that is evident, as we peruse the results of the NOC’s annual Grassroots Talent Identification Programme.

World Cup Preliminaries

St Vincent and the Grenadines will begin its participation in the 2010 Football World Cup Preliminaries against Canada, having benefited from a first round bye based on its ranking in the FIFA listing for the CONCACAF region. While on the surface this sounds impressive there is much reason for concern.