by Rick Lowe
Watching the Bahamian men's relay sprinters blow past the American team to win gold was an amazing moment. Bahamian's every where are justly proud.
Of course it was also great to watch the Jamaican runners come in for bronze, silver and gold. What a feat.
However, I see no place in their achievements for the political class. Of course the Prime Minister and the Minister of Sports rush into the spotlight to congratulate the "heroes" and fill the air waves and newspapers with so much hyperbole, you'd think they ran the races and not the athletes.
Then along comes Sir Roland Saunders to suggest "A single Caribbean sports academy to ensure future world champions" for the region headquartered in Jamaica of course.
There are many Bahamian, and regional athletes that benefit from coaches and trainers etc at the American University or college they attend it would be pointless for The Bahamas government to spend taxpayer money on such a pursuit.
Our athletes spend much of their own time, energy and talent to succeed and The Bahamas capitalises at times like this as they represent the country, but let's face it, we deserve no more of the credit and costs that we already enjoy.
Congratulations again to all the athletes representing The Bahamas and all the other countries that were at the London Games.
By the way, if Sir Roland would like to pursue his idea, and can raise the money privately without using the coercive power of the state to extract tax dollars to accomplish his ends, he's free to do so of course.
Thanks Rick. You certainly speak for me and I think you speak for our growing Blogger community when you congratulate our (and Jamaica’s and Grenada’s) world-beating lads on jobs well done at the XXXeme Olympiad. I was lucky to be in the Olympic Stadium last week (although I unfortunately missed the relays due to a previous appointment at the Boxing semifinals on Friday night).
During our enjoyable visit, I had a most interesting discussion with my wife, who opined that the achievements of athletes should accrue to the country and coaches/facilities where the athletes trained. We were discussing in particular, England-based 15-year-old Ruta Meilutyte, who had won Gold in the 100m breaststroke final. The ‘discussion point’ was that the medal was won for Lithuania (her Father had moved the family to Plymouth, England several years ago to take advantage of the internationally acclaimed Plymouth Leander Swimming programme).
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2181250/Ruta-Meilutyte-Plymouth-schoolgirl-wins-breaststroke-gold-medal-unfortunately-swims-Lithuania.html
To me, her statement was contentious because many athletes, including ours and many from the Caribbean, would probably not achieve their aspirations and fulfil their sporting ambitions without the help of some other country, in our case, the USA and the brilliant facilities and resources of the big NCAA schools!
This brings me to the point of your post; a central, regionally funded sports academy in the West Indies is not a bad idea and neither is the idea that it should be funded by governments. After all, they are the first to claim the fruits of these athletes endeavours and will exploit whatever PR opportunities arise, so why shouldn’t they shoulder the financial burden of their development?
Of course, this is not to say that Politics should be a part of the process; in fact, quite the opposite – public money in but politics out so the experts can be left to do their work!
Thanks S3S but I can’t agree with you.
First of all tax dollars can be put to better use.
Second of all, most of the politicians only feign an interest when they can get into the spotlight at the expense and hard work of the athletes.
Morning Rick, yes, tax dollars can always find a ‘better use’ but this is why we need an ‘integrated’ debate in The Bahamas. I never said ‘tax dollars’ but I did say ‘public money’ (http://www.abdn.ac.uk/crpf/publicmoneyoriginal.pdf).
At the moment, we are ruminating over whether to hold a referendum on gambling (a ‘no-brainer’, in my view). The debate could be easily enlarged to include ‘impact of funding’ and in particular, what could funds be used for?
In Britain, for example, since the National Lottery started in 1994, more than £2bn have been spent on sport, including more than £279m on swimming facilities; £87m for tennis; more than £250m on athletics and £1.7m on cycling.
Similarly, in The Bahamas (and indeed, the West Indies) we could harvest this lucrative source of funds to do good. Of course when ‘easy money’ finds a route through government, there is always a chance of corruption but that’s another concern for another day!