Brilliant Champs still missing a trick

THE WONDER that is Champs! The Inter-Secondary Schools Sports Association/GraceKennedy Boys and Girls’ Athletics Championships has just concluded. By far, the most competitive, high-quality school competition in the world seems to get better with each successive year.

Performances match passion and school loyalty exceeds national or party loyalty. Just as coaches must be given credit for the athletes, the organisers, the ISSA and the sponsors, GraceKennedy Ltd, must be given kudos for a consistently high-quality production.

Many flock Champs from overseas. This year we even had a delegation from Trinidad and Tobago, led by the Minister of Sport herself. Hundreds of thousands of online viewers and a large television audience continue to grow annually. Merchandising has reached the enviable position of being counterfeited. I gleamed with pride when I saw Calabar and Jamaica College shirts being sold in branded stores in posh malls of India. Never mind the fact that the salesman was selling them as “Jamaican beachwear”. Which other high school jersey is sold on the other side of the world?

For those not versed with Champs, it all started with six schools combining their sports days in 1910. The all-boys version was won by Wolmer’s Boys’ School. Girls’ Champs started in 1957 with St Hilda’s High School emerging victorious. In 1999, both male and female competitions were merged to its current form.

Whereas all top Jamaican athletes have emerged from Champs, none dominated every class in their school athletic sojourn. In other words, competition has been so keen that no one has dominated all four classes competing in Champs. And interestingly, most of our world beaters have not come from the traditional schools that win Champs, especially among the males.

Additionally, many of the top Champs performers do not go on to dominate the world in keeping with their trajectory of success in high school. This column has published many past articles chronicling the advances in sport in general and how that has affected our standing in other sports like cricket, football, and netball. Youth talent identification and formation of high-performance centres and academies that fulfil academic and sporting requirements seems to be the path of the future.

Specialised centres looking after the needs of age-group athletes, including nutrition, psychology, and training, while maintaining academic progress seems to be blossoming in public and private enterprises. Academies taking athletes as early as age nine and focusing on sport and studies are flourishing in many countries. The track record seems to be good, with most top sportspersons coming out of such set-ups.

TOP CLUBS

In Jamaica, we have two of the top sprinting clubs in the world. Racers Track Club, with head coach Glen Mills, and MVP, with Stephen Francis, have won more Olympic and World Championship medals than most countries on earth!

Yet neither of them, nor any of the other track clubs have any access to the Champs athletes until they have passed out of the school system. So, on one hand most countries are getting their young talent to their best coaches as early in life as possible, and we are depriving them of the same.

The sport development system in most sports is based on club structures as opposed to schools. With the exception of perhaps the American system, most of the world where a strong school competitive system in sport exists also have a strong club system for competitive sport. That allows for mixing and matching of athletes and coaches. It may be well thinking for a similar system in Jamaica.

Another hindrance to world dominance of some of the champions of Champs is injury. Too many of these potential world beaters have their careers halted by recurrent injuries. Many do not even get through Champs. Most advanced sporting countries expose their youngsters to the best available in sports science and sports medicine as soon as possible. This contributes to enhancing athletic potential while reducing injuries or ensuring proper recovery from injuries.

Once again, our system denies most athletes access to the specialists in Jamaica as high schools are made to fend for themselves in terms of access to doctors. Most rely on alumni or anyone willing to contribute their time, irrespective of their specialisation, if any.

The most prevalent injury in athletes is that of the hamstring. The biggest predictor of getting a hamstring injury is having had one previously. Yet, by the time our top Champs athletes get to our top coaches, many, if not all, have had a previous hamstring injury, likely not treated by a sports medicine physician or sports physiotherapist. Much time and resources are therefore spent by these clubs in treating recurrent injuries instead of developing technical aspects.

For all the success and joy that Champs brings every year, it may be time to look at the development pathway for our athletes. Not only does most of the expertise to see them to the next level reside here in Jamaica, but it is also tried and proven. I have often said that attention should not only be placed on how many Usains, Shellys, Asafas, or Elaines we have produced, but on how many we have lost. As sport development evolves, this sporting superpower must do so as well.

Sport Pulse and Sport Matters are fortnightly columns highlighting advances that impact Sport. We look forward to your continued readership.Dr Akshai Mansingh is Dean, Faculty of Sport, The UWI. He can be reached at akshai.mansingh@uwi.edu