Greater commitment to sports required
Generally, there are some international federations that offer training more for coaches than for other personnel while others offer the full range of training. For example some federations provide training for coaches, technical officials, sports medicine personnel and administrators.
The National Olympic Committee (NOC) here has been fortunate enough to be able to access several training opportunities for its affiliates. Unfortunately these opportunities are directed specifically at the sports that are on the official programme of the Olympic Games since the intention of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is to ensure that each NOC is able to develop its own members to the extent that they will perform better at the different editions of the Olympic Games.
The NOC has been able to secure training from two sources under the ambit of the IOC. The first is under the Olympic Solidarity World Programme administered from the Offices of Olympic Solidarity in Lausanne, Switzerland, while the second comes from the Pan American Olympic Solidarity administered by the Pan American Sports Organisation (PASO) from its offices in Mexico City, Mexico.
World Programmes
In the case of the World Programmes the NOC offers training opportunities for athletes, coaches and administrators.
The coaching programmes are manifold. Coaches can stay at home and be invited to participate in Technical Courses which are organised in tandem with their respective international federations. This allows for more coaches to be trained at the same time.
Additionally, the NOC offers some coaches the opportunity for attachments to institutions abroad for a period of up to three months and which should facilitate an enhancement of the skills of the local coaches.
Thirdly the NOC offers coaches the opportunity to attend advanced coaching programmes at a university level of three months duration.
There is finally an opportunity provided for local coaches to hone their skills when the NOC allocates to a national sports association an internationally approved and certified course for a period of between four to six months.
In respect of administrators the NOC has also afforded many at home the opportunity for training. There have been courses for sports administrators and some specifically designed for women in sport. In this way several administrators have benefited.