When will our athletes get better treatment?

Sportscope: Our opinion

Recently there has been a reasonable amount of success by sports teams and sportsmen and women representing the Golden Arrowhead.

It started with the success of the Guyana junior girls’ team at the annual junior Caribbean Squash tournament in the Cayman Islands and ended with Saturday’s nail biting win by the national Twenty20 cricket team over Barbados in the final of the West Indies Cricket Board’s inaugural Twenty20 tournament in the twin-island republic of Trinidad and Tobago.

Sandwiched in the middle were the performances of the national male and female rugby Sevens teams.

The male team won the Central American and Caribbean Games rugby gold medal and added the North American and Caribbean Rugby Association (NACRA) Seven’s championships.

The female team won their version of the NACRA championships.

Individually there were gold medal wins in squash for Ashley Khalil, Mary Fung-A-Fat, Victoria Arjoon and Jean Claude Jeffrey.

In table tennis going back to this year’s Pre Cadet and Cadet Championships in Puerto Rico there was a gold medal win for Chelsea Edghill in the girls’ Under-13 singles competition. As the saying goes, “not bad at all.”

What is remarkable about these achievements though, is the fact that they were done with little or no assistance from government and that in most cases the opposition had the benefit of advanced training and superior equipment.

It is no secret that national teams leaving these shores have got to find their own airfare which sometimes is beyond the ability of the associations.

In almost every instance it is the combined efforts of parents and sponsors that are responsible for keeping the Golden Arrowhead aloft at regional and other international meets.

Several associations pulled out from participating at the just concluded XXI CAC Games in Puerto Rico after the government reneged on its promise to assist the Guyana Olympic Association.

But this problem is not a problem for Guyana alone.

In a Caribbean Media Corporation report on Bermuda’s attendance at the CAC Games it was stated: “The Games represent a significant financial undertaking for the BOA, as well as the majority of the athletes, who also have to dig into their own pockets to make the trip to Puerto Rico.

“It is difficult for many elite and would-be elite athletes to commit sufficient time to training and also earn or raise enough funds to get them to international competitions like the CAC Games,” said BOA Secretary General Philip Guishard.

Clearly the problem also affects other Caribbean countries.

But a few athletes speaking to Stabroek Sport are of the impression that they are being taken for a ride by some sports administrators whose main aim, they feel, is to reap all the benefits at the expense of the athletes.

“They pretend to be glad when our sports teams do well but their lack of input is the litmus test as to the genuineness of their feelings,” one athlete told Stabroek Sport.

Cricket is probably the only sport where the players do not have to scoot about begging for money to purchase their tickets for regional tournaments although  another section of the media reported yesterday that the Guyana players on the national Twenty20 team have balked at signing a contract where they would have been required to fork over 50 per cent of their earnings for winning the just concluded tournament.

More and more it seems as if athletes are now saying to sports associations enough is enough.

In 2008 the Golden Jaguars ambushed Guyana Football Federation (GFF) president Colin Klass in the wee hours of the morning as he was preparing to leave his hotel in Trinidad and Tobago following the staging of the Digicel competition.

The players, some of whom had travelled to Trinidad from the United Kingdom and the United States of America, had reportedly been unable to get in contact with Klass to discuss the financial aspects of their participation in Trinidad.

Up to yesterday it was not yet clear whether the players on the national Twenty20 team had signed the contracts.

What is disturbing is that there seems to be no desire by sports administrators to tackle the government on the issues of funding for national sports teams leaving these shores and on the issue of providing facilities for their sportsmen and women to train.

There is also no corresponding desire by this government to assist national sports teams by at least paying for their airfare.

Prior to the cycling team leaving for the CAC games vice president of the Guyana Cycling Federation  (GCF) Brian Allen pointed out that the three-member team was at a great disadvantage because of the absence of a cycling velodrome here.

It is the same with other sports, facilities for our athletes are as scarce as flour was during the Burnham regime although this government has been making strides in this department with the a 50-metre pool at Liliendaal and the Guyana Squash Racquets Centre.

However, the GFF is yet to own its own ground and its national teams are often kicked from ground to ground when preparing for major competitions.

When will our athletes get better treatment?
Your guess is as good as ours.