Editorial | Reviewing athletics

Although its format, at this point, is hazy, The Gleaner welcomes the Jamaica Olympic Association’s (JOA) plan for an event next month “to reward and applaud the feats” of Jamaican athletes at the Paris Olympics.

The point is, this newspaper supports any reasonable activity that celebrates and acknowledges achievements by Jamaica’s athletes and the hard work and enduring effort that usually precede their performance on the track or field of play.

Christopher Samuda, the JOA’s president, as quoted in the press, described the coming event as blending “yesterday’s quintessential traditions … with contemporary tastes, with both seated comfortably in the values of sport, which we celebrate and give primacy in the Olympic movement”.

However the JOA realises Mr Samuda’s vision, we hope it isn’t an overly gilded one-off function, to be repeated at four-yearly intervals, in concert with the cycle of the Olympic Games.

Or rather, The Gleaner believes that the proposed event provides a worthy platform from which to launch a broad and deep national conversation on the state and trajectory of Jamaica athletics, and what the island must do to maintain, and accelerate, its place as a power in global track and field athletics.

While the Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association (JAAA) would be expected to be at the forefront of this discourse, the JOA, inevitably, must have a critical role in it – as must a raft of other sporting bodies and stakeholders in both the public and private sectors.

Put another way, Jamaica can’t afford to rest on its athletics laurels.

To borrow a concept from market capitalism, when entrenched players are at their peak and become complacent, that is when they are often at their most vulnerable to the forces of creative destruction. Nimble and innovative entrants often displace overly self-assured incumbents.

This is not to say that Jamaica is at the stage of those stolid and satisfied firms that are undone by their failure to adapt.

STAGE OF TRANSITION

Nonetheless, it is a fact, and obviously so, that the island’s track athletics is at a stage of transition from the recent golden period of the likes of Usain Bolt, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, Elaine Thompson-Herah and Shericka Jackson.

Indeed, at the Paris Olympics, while Jamaican athletes made breakthroughs, or asserted themselves in field events, performance on the track, by this country’s standard of recent years, was disappointing.

Only two medals were won in individual track events: Kishane Thompson’s silver for his hair’s breadth loss to American Noah Lyles in the men’s 100 metres; and Rasheed Broadbell’s bronze in the men’s 110 metres hurdles.

In field events, Roje Stona gained a historic gold in the discus throw. Rajindra Campbell also made history by winning a bronze in shot put. And Wayne Pinnock and Shanieka Ricketts won silver in the men’s long jump and women’s triple jump, respectively.

Myriad events, including sheer misfortune and injuries, contributed to the below-expectation performance of the Jamaican track athletes. But Paris – within the frame of that idea from economics of incumbents/industry leaders needing to stay alert and innovative – revealed, or confirmed, something important: a deepening and widening insurgency by countries that hitherto weren’t in the top-tier of global athletics.

So, St Lucia’s Julien Alfred won gold and silver, respectively, in the women 100 metres and 200 metres sprint, giving her country its first medals at an Olympic games. Similarly, Dominica’s Thea LaFond made history for that island with gold in the women’s triple jump.

This, in part, is a reflection of the market globalisation of sports. Ms Alfred had access to Jamaica’s notoriously rigorous high school athletics system before transferring to the United States. Additionally, athletes from small countries that don’t possess Jamaica’s historic pedigree in track and field have more opportunity to compete with the best on the global professional circuit.

This is akin to what development economists might broadly characterise as infusion and diffusion and technology transfer in the context of a country transitioning in its development status. Which is easier to achieve when dealing with a handful of innately talented athletes than in transforming whole economies.

The JOA and JAAA perhaps get the point.

FISSURES AND STRESSES

But in addition to this global gap-closing, clear organisational fissures and management stresses are increasingly evident in Jamaica’s athletics set-up.

There was, for instance, the JAAA’s slip up in the athletes’ registration process that not only cost the Jamaican hammer thrower, Nayoka Clunis, an automatic place among the 32 participants for the games, but kept her out of the Olympics altogether.

Then there was University of the West Indies sports science researcher Professor Rachel Irving’s complaint of her inability to get through to Jamaica’s athletics authorities (JOA and JAAA) about her work on heat and the performance of athletes, which might have been of value to the performance and health of Jamaican participants at the games. Recall, too, the pre-games contretemps between the JOA and the JAAA over what the latter claimed was the inadequate financing of coaches to the games.

It is possible that all of these issues were, as the protagonists might argue, overblown. They, nonetheless, suggest the presence of chinks that ought to be seriously addressed before they become gaping cracks that are difficult to repair.

Many of these issues also involve questions of money, or the insufficiency thereof, to finance a major athletics programme; who controls the funds that are available; and how what is available is disbursed and accounted for.

These are conversations that must be had.