The super performances of our athletes at the 2017 CARIFTA Games held in Willemstad, Curacao, have made all Guyanese extremely proud. The Athletes have made a mark on the international circuit and are deserving of every accolade and commendation bestowed, for their hard work, commitment, individual and collective efforts. As they challenged and fought for supremacy in various categories, many on the team displayed the potential and preparation to overwhelm their competing paramours;with character, grit and determination by spectacularly refusing to be outdone.
Neil Kumar
Compton Caesar the champion athlete from the Mining Town Linden, led the way with a magnificent win in the males 100 M sprint. Caesar won Gold with a magical time of 10.46 seconds as he held Barbados’s Jaquone Hoyte in second position (10.47 seconds); and the world sprint country Jamaica’s Jelani Walker in third with a time of 10.61 seconds. It was indeed a momentous occasion for Guyana.
Caesar after winning the 100 meters event went on to win a bronze medal in the 200 M event. Chantoba Bright won gold in the Long Jump and bronze in the triple jump. Claudrice McKoy captured Gold in the 3000M event and went on to win bronze in the 1500 M event. Natricia Hooper won Gold in the triple jump while Anfernee Headecker won silver in the 1500 M event.
In our appreciation of the welcoming results, recognition of the efforts the Athletic Association of Guyana (AAG), and other key stakeholders including the Guyana Olympic Association as well as Corporate support, must be highlighted.Let us also not forget the significance and the vision of the PPP/C Government towards the establishment of critical infrastructure to help in the development and preparation of our athletes. Relevant in this regard is the State-of-the-art Synthetic Athletic Track at Leonora for our Athletes to have access to and benefit from world class facilities to train and be fully prepared for winning at International events.
Further, it is the PPP/C that bought a ‘brand’ new thirty-seater bus to support the process, that is now in the hands of this Government to facilitate our athlete’s development. It is most encouraging to know that even the ‘dorms’ facilities that were built at National Gymnasium are also fully utilized for the development of sport in our country. Our athlete’s dreams are now coming as a consequence of the critical establishments when the PPP/C was in Government.
It cannot be denied that the powerful international athletics administrators who were invited to deliver pure and heavily motivated lectures to our Sport Administrators, Coaches and Athletes at the Guyana Sport Resource Centre are beginning to bear fruits. The likes of Jamaican Olympian, now Senior Sport Administrator Grace Jackson and Trinidad and Tobago Olympian Gold Medalist Ato Bolton along with several imminent Sport personalities, did deliver some highly motivated and inspiring lectures to our Guyanese stake-holders. Guyanese Sport personalities must make sure that the Sport Resource Centre develops into a National Sport Institute.
Now that we are beginning to see the fruits of our investment in sport we must recognized that it is imperative that we stop all the talking and walk the walk with our athletes. In Guyana we have the talent, all we need to do is to cajole and nurture them and our Golden Youths will bring us Gold medals.
Let me call on the Athletic Association of Guyana (AAG), Guyana Olympic Association and the Government along with all other stake holders including our pride spectators and most valuable Sponsors to unite and work together for the immediate and further development of sports in Guyana. Let us work together to realize and maximize synergies, for we can produce the next Usain Bolt.
Forward with the AAG developmental programme for the next Olympic Games. Our sports developmental programme must repeat at a higher level-‘The Inspire Sport Management Workshop.’ Let us have the likes of Grace Jackson, Ato Boldon, and Cathy Rattray along with the American Kristi Castlin who went on to win a Gold medal at the Olympic Games in Brazil to repeat that training llecturers. The PPP/C indeed set the country on a path to world fame.
