President of the Athletics Association of Guyana (AAG), Claude Blackmore stated yesterday that the newly-formed athletic club, Running Braves was not debarred from competing locally but it was, however, ineligible to compete in inter-club meets.
Blackmore told Stabroek Sport yesterday that the new club was not debarred from competing as was peddled around at Sunday’s AAG inter-club relay meet by officials of the Running Braves athletic club.
Several top local athletes including Rawle Greene, Emmerson Campbell, Jemel Fields, Tai Payne and Lionel Dandrade were disgruntled about not being able to compete under their new club at Sunday’s club meet.
Official of the club, Keith Campbell was obviously upset at the Police Sports Club ground because of what he called the AAG’s move to ‘prevent’ the athletes from competing because of a pending registration application made to the AAG by the club.
However, Blackmore said that the AAG received Running Braves’ application form after the beginning of the AAG’s new calendar year on December 1, 2006; and because of that, he said, the club could not be considered for full membership as a club with the AAG.
“They were ineligible (to compete at the inter-club relay meet) because they were not an affiliate club as of December 1,” Blackmore said, adding that the AAG council looked at the club’s application for provisional membership in February.
Provisional membership will allow the Running Braves to compete at open competitions but not inter-club (club vs. club) meets. Running Braves will have to wait until the commencement of the 2008 calendar year to attain full membership with the AAG.
Campbell said that Blackmore explained those processes to him yesterday, but that is incomprehensible to him since it undermines the AAG’s plan to make track and field one of the most popular sports by 2012.
“That makes no sense to me, you cannot want to encourage clubs when you discouraging athletes; since January (when the application was made) you had to let us know our status because we went ahead and prepared for the meet,” the Running Braves official said.
According to the AAG’s head, the letter on the position of the club after the AAG council met in February had not been received by the Running Braves up to Sunday, hence a lack of understanding of the due process that was required for the application.
“I only learnt on Sunday when I had to deal with this issue that Running Braves had not received our letter in response to their application request,” Blackmore said.
The AAG president had promised to deal with the issue at the conclusion of Sunday’s meeting. He had also promised to look into the fact that some athletes who competed at the inter-club relay meet did not run for their respective clubs and in their right age groups.
Up to yesterday, the AAG was still dealing with that matter.
The unofficially dethroned Royal Youth Movement (RYM) athletic club are contending that they have more wins in the various events than eventual winners, Progressive Youth Club (PYC).
As a result the club is refusing to accept defeat, urging the AAG to recount the points and issue an official results statement with the number of wins and losses. PYC beat RYM 214 to 202 points to reclaim the inter-club relay title on Sunday.
