- says Alika Morgan

By Kiev Chesney

Just as Alika Morgan had begun to bask in the glory of her unprecedented accomplishment of four straight Caricom 10k titles, her return home was blemished by the disappointing news of not being selected to attend the 15th Annual IAAF 2008 World Junior Championships in Bydgoszcs, Poland from 8-13th  July.

Hours after she returned from Antigua, Morgan told Stabroek Sport that although she was very pleased and honoured to have retained her title at the Caricom 10k race, she is disappointed that she will not be attending the World Junior Championships (WJC) this year.

“I am pleased to have captured my fourth Caricom title but at the same time I can’t be too happy because I am very disappointed that I will not get the chance to attend the World [Junior] Championships,” she said.
Morgan explained that her management team had been preparing her specifically for the WJC after learning of the cancellation of the Central American and Caribbean (CAC) Junior Track and Field Championships this year.

She added that they had been constantly inquiring about the 2008 WJC but received no response from the Athletics Association of Guyana (AAG).

Although AAG president Claude Blackmore had told Stabroek Sport in a telephone interview earlier this week that the AAG had submitted Oslyn Collins’ name to the IAAF as an unqualified athlete, this newspaper was unable to obtain the reason for her selection as several attempts over the last two days to contact him were futile.

Just as baffled at Collins’s selection as this newspaper, the four-time Caricom 10k winner said, “I can’t understand how come they select her [Collins] instead of me.

“It is not like I had to be somewhere else at the same time because I have finished running the 10k last weekend and the Olympic Junior Camp that I will be attending is not until August so nothing would have affected me going to the games which is next week [8-13th July].”

Morgan also said that she thought that it is unfair that she had been training all year round, producing victory after victory locally and regionally only for someone who is nowhere close to her in terms of performance  to  get the chance to represent Guyana at one of the most prestigious Junior Championships internationally.

“How can they leave their best junior athlete at home and just send an ordinary athlete to these games?” she asked before adding, “I would really like for someone from the association to answer that question because I can’t understand it.”

The local distance queen said that such decisions by the governing body in track and field are causing the state of athletics in Guyana to deteriorate.

She said, “When the AAG does things like this it really affects my running career and not only me but it breaks the spirit of many local athletes and that is why athletics isn’t going anywhere.”

Morgan said that she would have felt better if the AAG had selected a more deserving athlete and pointed out such prospects as Leota Bobb, Carlwyn Collins, Treiston Joseph, Jonathon Fagundes and her training partner Janelle Jonas.

“Any of them would have been a better choice and although I think that I may have deserved it more than them I would not have been as disappointed as I am now because it is like if all those races that I win don’t matter to them – they know who they wanted to send.”