- Pompey comes in for praise

The Guyana Olympic Association (GOA) has commended the team that went to the 2008 Beijing Olympics and came back medal-less.

Chef-de-mission Noel Adonis said that while Guyana failed to win any medals the team performed creditably.
According to Adonis 12 athletes were identified to take part in  track and field, six in boxing, four in table tennis and three in Taekwondo.

From left Olympian Nial Roberts, Swimming Coach Stephanie Fraser, GOA President K A Juman -Yassin, Charge-de-Mission Noel Adonis, Olympic Jr. Ambassador Alika Morgan and Manager Cornell Rose. (Lawrence Fanfair photo)

He said that by August only three had made the grade in Aliann Pompey, Mariann Burnett and US-based Adam Harris while the fourth member, swimmer Niall Roberts was given a wild card by Fédération Internationale de Natation (FINA) the International Swimming Federation which makes provision for that.

Roberts, according to swimming coach Stephanie Fraser, suffered from nervousness since he had never participated before in the presence of thousands of spectators. When he went into the water in his event, the 50-metre free style, he dived in too deeply, Fraser said, but managed to shave 24th of a second off his normal time swimming 25:13 as compared to his best before of 25:37. Roberts is ranked 69th in the world out of 104 swimmers.

The 17-year-old Roberts, the GOA President said, was a sure bet to take part in the London 2012 Olympics because by then the local Olympic size pool should be constructed giving local swimmers a better opportunity to train.

In Pompey’s case Adonis said that the runner’s performance in qualifying for the semi-finals and finishing 11th overall was creditable.

He said that Pompey, unlike the other athletes does not have a sponsor, does a full-time job, and is not privileged to train whole day. Pompey, he added, receives a US$1000 a month scholarship and cannot sustain herself on that in the United States.

In Burnett’s case, Adonis said, it was one of her off days as her personal best is 1:59:47 but she ran 2:02:05 and did not qualify for the heats but manager Ross said that she was “spiked”. At the end of the race he saw blood running down Burnett’s ankle. “She did well to finish the preliminary race,” Ross said.

In the case of controversial selectee US-born and based Adam Harris, he ran 21:13 in his heats and Adonis, while backing the athlete’s inclusion said that only when they arrived at the Olympics did they learn that the last time that Harris ran was at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) games in May. In that meet Harris ran a time of 20:75s.

Harris though has the backing of the GOA as President Juman Yassin who said that he was keen for the 21-year-old athlete to participate in London in 2012.

The non-inclusion of distance Runner Cleveland Forde was a hotly discussed topic as prior information revealed that the athlete would have been given a “wild card.”

This is not so, the GOA executives said. As Forde had trained under an Olympic scholarship the Amateur Athletics Association of Guyana (AAAG) had written the International Olympic Association (IOA) asking for him to be allowed to take part. Forde’s  performance over the past 18 months had  “nose dived” as in 2007 he ran 14:07s in the 5000m South American race but lately he had been running over 15:30s rather than 13:50s.

Meanwhile, on the local scene Yassin is calling for top class athletics to be started at schools in order to have the athletes groomed at an earlier age. This view was supported by Adonis who called for athletes to stop running barefoot on grass and to start wearing running shoes  on circuit-like tracks.