Oral Tracey | More Champs bullies?

It was without the usual excitement, anticipation and optimism for the future of Jamaica's track and field that the 2018 edition of the ISSA/GraceKennedy Boys and Girls' Athletics Championships (Champs) unfolded in front of my eyes. Instead, I watched in a mode of quiet trepidation, attempting to reconcile the numerous outstanding performances of super talented youngsters such as Kevona Davis, Antonio Watson, Sachin Dennis, Vashan Vascianna, Dejour Russell, Christopher Taylor and others with the recent narrative of so many outstanding Champs performers over the years failing to transition into successful seniors .

My expressed view remains that for the level of talent seen and continued to be seen at Champs every single year, including this year, the transition percentage is way too low. Others have opined that it is empirically unproven that Champs success is a major factor in the number of talented athletes who have fallen by the wayside, and that the rate of attrition is what it is, and it is just the way the cookie crumbles.

Another school of thought is that despite the low transition rate, our level of international success at the senior level is great, so why complain? I maintain that if, God forbid, athletes of the calibre of Taylor, Russell, Davis, Dennis and Watson fail to fulfil their immense potential and fade into obscurity while some anonymous athletes who showed far less early potential go on to become World and Olympic champions, something would be radically wrong, and our system, as it is, would be failing and effectively destroying our most talented young athletes.

'WHY WALK AWAY?'

A lot of it has to do with the mentality of these athletes, where they seem to not appreciate their potential outside of Champs. In that regard, one of the most telling moments in these just concluded Champs was Calabar's team captain and perennial Champs star performer Christopher Taylor, when asked about his plans for the future, whether he was going to college, going professional, or returning to Calabar to try and make it eight straight victories, said he would not rush the decision to go professional or to go to college. He intimated how much he loved Champs and asked rhetorically, "Why should I walk away from this great atmosphere?"

Taylor's response epitomises the issue at hand. In terms of Champs talent and Champs success, it gets no bigger and better than Taylor. He has seen it and done it all and has nothing else to prove at this level. He is perhaps the most prime candidate as a junior to graduate to the senior ranks, but by his answer to that question, he has confirmed his evolution into a 'creature of Champs'. With that, he effectively expressed little or no immediate ambitions of stepping up to the next level without even realising that this very moment of procrastination could be a crucial deciding factor in whether he ever makes that transition or not.

Champs glory is great in the moment, but it is fleeting and inconsequential in the wider scheme of things. Successful and lucrative professional careers are there in waiting for athletes with real talent and potential if the right decisions are made, the focus remains, and the hard and meticulous work is put in.

What would be the explanation if Davis remains at Edwin Allen for another three years and helps her school to extend its impressive winning streak? What if she then inevitably gets caught in that mental space where winning Champs and

the commensurate perks of that micro success dominate her mental space and sap her ambitions and drive? This would be explained away by some simplistic pronouncement of "a so it go", and "they can't all make it", while the fraternity moves on to wax lyrical about the next emerging 14-year-old while forgetting Davis.

Again, this is not a call for Champs to be dismantled or even diluted. It is a call for vision to take over from myopia, for good sense to prevail over emotions, and for selflessness to rise above selfishness. It is a call for better understanding and management of the talent we continue to produce in the sport of track and field. Athletics is already our most successful sport internationally, but we could be even more successful if more people in more places put more emphasis on producing 'world beaters' and not 'Champs bullies'.