Another scandalous misstep

Ivor O'Brien
Ivor O’Brien

……AAG plays true to form

By Orin Davidson

The name Blackmore is synonymous with boxing which was once the pride of Guyana’s sports when Lennox reigned supreme.
Otherwise, the next best known Blackmore in the local sports fraternity can be found in athletics.

Claude BlackmoreClaude Blackmore is not renowned for competitive glory, but can be regarded as a career sports administrator, one of the longest serving types around these parts.
He is president of the Athletics Association of Guyana (AAG), which once rivalled football as the second most popular discipline in Guyana but is now enduring a poverty crisis that would rank it among the worst-run sports associations in the country.

Poverty of on-field accomplishments and resources has combined to make athletics an after thought as a sports discipline in Guyana. It hardly exists in the minds of some people who once held the sport in high esteem.

The state of the sport is bad enough to almost churn the stomachs of the great competitors Guyana produced in the 1950s, `60s and `70s.
Wherever you go inside or outside the country, Guyanese once associated with the sport refer to the AAG with nothing but scorn.

And justifiably so as Blackmore’s leadership of the AAG has done more to ruin the careers of many promising athletes (among other misdeeds) rather than guide a path to fruitful careers.

Young Alika Morgan is the latest recipient of the AAG’s abhorrent treatment of its charges.
  Like many before her, young Morgan is being made to suffer because of the AAG’s violent disregard for merit in (among other practices) the selection of its representatives for international competition.

K Juman-YassinShe is by far the most accomplished of Guyana’s junior athletes female or male, yet the distance champion is being overlooked for another competitor, unheard of performance-wise, to compete at the World junior athletics championships.

And also like many before her, it is not the first time Morgan is being hurt by the association’s contempt for efficiency.   
Less than two years ago, the same AAG so bungled the youngster’s entry requirement for the World Youth Championships, she missed out on making her debut in a major competition.

If you want to pursue a career in athletics in Guyana you have to come with a capacity to raise funds before acquiring the ability to run, jump or throw. 
Because you will be governed by an association that is so bankrupt of purpose, athletes have the added burden of finding their own money to cover expenses when selected by the AAG to represent the country on most occasions

As is patently obvious, this is not an association whose aim is to develop the sport, rather the pursuit of self interest and its benefits occupy the first, second and third positions in the priority list of Blackmore’s AAG.

Which explains why it remains the pariah of national sports associations and is scorned by sources that can provide the financial and other help to lift it from the doldrums.

Ivor O\'BrienAnd the casualties are always the athletes many of whom are discouraged and leave the sport long before realizing their full potential.
They quickly surrender to the politics and favoritism that have long been the hallmarks in every aspect of the AAG’s operations which have desecrated the once good name of Guyana’s athletics.

It explains why the wrong officials and in cases similar to Morgan’s – the wrong athletes are selected for teams.  
The story of the female official, who abandoned teenaged distance runner Vishwanauth Sookmangal in Miami a few years back, during a junior meet there, when the athlete had to be rescued by strangers, is a classic case of the odious nature of the association’s operations. 

 Needless to say that official is still a part of the Blackmore led AAG and taking teams abroad while the young runner, a three-time Carifta Games gold medalist, has long since quit the sport in disgust.

These types of officials, encouraged by the trips, and who have helped to sink athletics to its despicable levels, have remained in office because they are important components of the political game at elections time.

Blackmore has been reigning for more than 15 years at the helm.  

And in that time including prior periods when he served in other capacities on the association, the sport has gone way backwards despite the president attending every conceivable conference of the International Association of Athletics Federations, (IAAF) the world governing body.

Blackmore returns with his two long hands without anything to show for the good of local athletics and it took Guyana Olympic Association (GOA) president K. Juman Yassin to secure training help in Kenya for young distance runner Cleveland Forde, during one of his meetings abroad.

It is a searing indictment on the sport when an official has been at the helm of a national sports association for as long as the AAG president and is still around without achieving anything of note, despite the opportunities.

Guyana- born Olympics hurdles gold medalist Mark McKoy once visited Guyana but his offers of assistance were rebuffed.

So you don’t have to ask why stalwart Guyanese ex-athletes like James Wren Gilkes, June Marcia Griffith and Aubrey `Skinny’ Wilson, who made their names internationally, have never had any involvement with the AAG.

This is at a time when West Indian greats like Jamaica’s Don Quarrie and Hasely Crawford of Trinidad and Tobago are putting their expertise to great use for their homeland. 

Blackmore has shamelessly hung on despite his baggage which has resulted in those big names not wanting to touch the sport with a 10-foot pole.
It is noteworthy that his long time colleague in the Guyana Olympic Association (GOA) Ivor O’Brien has come out and publicly criticized the association over the Morgan affair while its president tries to remain unnoticed.

But it will be even better if O’Brien could go a step further and ask Blackmore to take a hike, to leave athletics and give willing individuals like businessman Colin Ming, who was hounded from the sport, the chance to clean up the mess. That is if he still has the will to stomach it.