JAMAICA’s three-time Olympian Grace Jackson suggested that if the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport (MCY&S) along with the Athletic Association of Guyana (AAG) go into Guyana’s countryside they should be able to find raw talent that can be nurtured.Jackson was at the time touring Guyana’s first ever synthetic track which is currently under construction at Leonara, West Coast Demerara when she told MCY&S Permanent Secretary Alfred King, his deputy Steve Ninvalle and other members of the touring party “ to get more youths involved in track and field and broaden your base of athletes, you should look at going into the countryside, construct 300 and 400-metre tracks and stage competitions.
The more people you have involved the better your chances are of identifying some who will show the potential and who you would be able to nurture to one day become an elite athlete”.
Jackson who is in Guyana for the MCY&S sponsored three-day National Sports Management Workshop which concluded yesterday, said with the completion of the synthetic track a lot of persons would enjoy getting an opportunity to use it and if regular meets are held in rural communities and the top performers are identified, the organisers can then have the athletes from the various communities compete against each other and the outstanding athletes can then move to the next stage until he/she advances to the stage where they can be given specialised training and a chance to represent Guyana.
She said this is what is done in Jamaica and even in Trinidad and Tobago.
According to the 1984, 1988 and 1992 Olympian, in Jamaica there are various categories of competition such as basic schools championships, primary schools championships and high schools championships.
Jackson suggested that in Guyana, the national schools championships should be staged earlier in the year so that the top performers will be in peak form going into the many youth games that is staged each year throughout the Caribbean and further afield.
“We need to think how we look at sports, how do Guyana relate to other national championships in the Caribbean; we need to look at how we get back to the days of June Griffith, Dennis Collison and James Wren Gilkes,” Jackson stated.
While on tour of the track on Thursday, Jackson made several suggestions, one of them being the placement of electrical points at several areas around the track so that film crews would not have the headache of moving electrical cords all across the place, and this was noted by King who said he thinks there are points around the track but he was not sure.
She also suggested that running alongside the long jump pit there could have been a drain so that during its use, when a jumper jumps into the sand, the sand that spills out of the pit will spill into the drain instead of onto the synthetic track.
She advised that the sand in the pit should be turned over regularly.
She asked about a warm up track and King told her one will be constructed at the northern end of the facility, but this would not start until sometime next year, when the current track becomes operational.
According to Jackson, while addressing sport administrators at the National Resource Centre in Woolford Avenue on Thursday, she was looking at the space around the centre and the tennis court there and thought that a set of grass courts can be constructed there, especially, with the many schools in the immediate area.
“You have nice grass and lots of land, you can have grass courts and engage international players to come here and with so many schools in the area, I think it will be a boost for the sport” Jackson suggested, adding “You can even invite the Williams sisters (Serena and Venus) here, I think it will have a great impact on the youths and regular tennis players themselves”.
Written By Michael DaSilva