By Tamica Garnett
PRESIDENT of the Athletics Association of Guyana (AAG), Aubrey Hudson,is of the firm belief that the Guyanese athletes who participated at the just concluded Rio Olympics Games could have achieved better than what they put forth in their performances.Guyana was represented by four athletes at the Games: Winston George in the men’s 400m, Troy Doris in the men’s triple jump, Brenessa Thompson in the women’s 100m and 200m ,and Aaliyah Abrams in the women’s 400m.
Of the four athletes, Doris was the only one to get pass the initial stage and he made it into the next round of the competition.
Hudson posited that given the performances that the athletes displayed just prior to departing for the Olympics, he had expected better from them in Rio.
He emphasized however, that he was not targeting the athletes themselves, or saying that the lacked the ability to do better, only that he had expected to see better performances from the athletes at such a high profile meet.
“My comment continues to be that all of the athletes in Rio underperformed, meaning they all would have had better performances leading up to Rio”.
“I have the greatest confidence in these athletes to do well, because they’ve done it before. What I was disappointed in is the performance in Rio, and I want to be very clear on that. I did not wholesale say that any athlete was bad or that athlete was a bad athlete, and shouldn’t be in Rio; I’m talking about their performances.” Hutson said.
Hudson had earlier last week come under some harsh comments from stakeholders, following a video interview that he did with News Room, which was circulated on social media. Hutson said the backlash was simply a case of persons trying to “make a storm in a little teapot”.
Hudson said his sentiments are supported by the evidence; pointing out that none of the athletes were able to surpass or even equal their season’s best, at a time when it was hoped that the athletes would peak in their performance.
“Winston George did 45.25 in Beijing one year ago(and)he received an Olympic Solidarity scholarship; he was training in the US primarily most of the time; he showed up in Rio and ran 45.77, so how could anyone, including Winston George, be satisfied with his performance in Rio? Doris did 17.18 to qualify for Rio; jumped 16.81m in the preliminaries, and 16.90m in the finals. I doubt Troy Doris will be satisfied with that.” Hudson opined, adding that: “I know that these athletes can do it, because they would have done it before to qualify. My concern is what inhibited such a great performance in Rio where, for me, it mattered. “
Doris, the best athlete on the team, eventually ended with a creditable overall seventh place finish out of the 39 athletes in his event, after a best jump of 16.90m.That was after his performance was beleaguered with a number of foul jumps that might have otherwise seen him performing better. He entered the event with a SB of 17.18m, which is also Guyana’s national record.
Doris was not the only national record holder on the team. George holds Guyana’s men’s 400m record and Thompson has the women’s 100m and 200m records, which she also set earlier this year. Thompson had been enjoying a very good season, breaking the women’s 200m record twice this year, and the first female Guyanese to go below the 23 seconds mark in the women’s 200m, where the record now stands at 22.99 seconds. In the 100m, she was the first Guyanese to set a track record on home soil, when she clocked the record at 11.14 seconds at the AP Invitational, in June.
In Rio, 20 -year -old Thompson finished seventh in both her 100m and 200m heats, clocking 11.72 seconds and 23.65 seconds respectively. In the 100m, she ended 53 out of 64 entries, and in the 200m, she ended in 59 out of 72 participants.
Nineteen-year-old Abrams clocked 52.79 seconds, finishing fifth in her heats, and 38 out of 57 participants overall.
George,who had a SB of 45.76 seconds, and a PB of 45.25 seconds, clocked 45.77 seconds in Rio, to finish fifth in his heats and 26 overall, out of 50 athletes.
Hudson noted that he was still to receive a report from the coaches indicating if there were any conditions at the Games that may have impeded on the athletes’ abilities to perform better.
He said the AAG is now looking towards forging a better relationship with the coaches to map out the best way forward for the athletes.