President of the Dominica Amateur Athletics Association (DAAA) Godwin Dorsette has called for greater support towards athletics in Dominica.
According to Dorsette, the sport is faced with many challenges.
“Athletics is the mother sport of all sports, and I believe much more need to be coming to track and field. In getting more into track and field we get a stronger society. We build a more disciplined society … As we look at what is happening in track and field in the world today, we see the Caribbean being placed on the top of the world in its sprinting area,” Dorsette said.
Though the sport is popular and progressive in other countries, Dorsette is of the view that “we have fallen short in many ways.”
“Our athletes are being trained on the grass here and there and we have to go up and face the best of the region on a track where they are training normally,” he remarked.
Dorsette told the media at a ceremony last Friday, where LIME presented a $US10, 000 cheque to cover local athletes expenses to the CARIFTA Games, that the association was constantly faced with the difficulty of occasionally conducting athletes’ trips to train in Guadeloupe in professional facilities. Nonetheless, he noted that this allowed athletes to get a better understanding of the sport and “feel what is a track like.”
He said that local athletes are not being trained in the appropriate manner; hence they do not have the ability to properly represent the country. “So we can talk about our athletes not really being prepared in the way they should be so that they can go out and really represent Dominica and bring some of the tourists that Usain Bolt is bringing to Jamaica instead,” he added.
Meanwhile, Sports Coordinator Trevor Shillingford emphasized the benefits of improving conditions for athletes to train.
He said that though facilities may not be present on island athletes skills ought to be developed.
“Track and field can be developed as a home grown sport. We know that facilities are a challenge but I still believe that we can use the available facilities that we have to develop our athlete s… St Kitts and Nevis developed Kim Collins as a world champion before they invested in a proper track stadium,” Shillingford said.
He suggested meetings with the DAAA to forge a way forward to make locals atheletes become world class.
“ I dare say the track and field association; we can put together some plans that could help our athletes to become world class. And I stand ready to sit with your association in putting forward a plan where we probably can identify at least one or two athletes that we can look at as possible Olympic champions probably in the next eight years,” Shillingford stated.
He is currently in discussions to establish a cooperation between Dominica and Guadeloupe, for athletes here to travel fortnightly on the french island on weekends at training camp.
“Dominica is 20 minutes away from Guadeloupe … I am certain that we can see an improvement in the performance of our athletes,” he said.
– Hermisha Rolle, Staff reporter
Good appeal for improved facilities and training environment Mr. Dorsette. You mentioned Usian and Jamaica….Dominica and Dominicans and the Government have nevr embraced track and field. If you recall, at some point Dominica boast of the 3rd best Jumper in the World…..Nothing was done to promote this young man…..So I would like to know how will the athlete bring tourist to Dominica like Bolt is bringing to Jamaica without the support from the public on a whole and the Government.
We need our own facility. We can train overseas but we need our facility so we can have more athletes to choose from.
Also an opportunity for a lot of young athletes. I putting the Onus on the government and the different associations to improve the sporting facilities here in Dominica.