THROWERS NEED HELP AND RESPECT

I dont  know why, but some people in this country forget that the name of the sport in Track and Field, not Track and definitely not Sprints.
But that is the way we behave; as if the sprints are the other thing that matters. But the people who do the field events deserve the attention too.
Dorian Scott, a 20-metre shot putter, who missed the Olympics through injury, is perhaps Jamaica’s best thrower ever, but he is treated like an outcast. Travis Smikle last year became the first Jamaican thrower in more than 80 years to win a medal in global competition, when he secured a bronze medal at the World Youth Championships in Italy yet you never see hardly see his name in the papers like you would a Dexter Lee.
Jamaica currently sits on a gold mine of potential world-beating throwers and all they need is a little attention and support.
Yet, as journalists all we want to do is focus on the stars and not those who could become stars. We have become such fans of our sprinters we forget that there are other disciplines within the sport.
The administrators also have short-changed the throwers and field events people. Smikle, for example, sources said, was almost left off that team to Italy last year. If he had been, Jamaica would have come home with one medal instead of two, 50 per cent of our medal count.
Isn’t it time then for us to recognise that throwers should get some pride of place.
Last weekend I watched a talented bunch of young men throw at the Big Shot Invitational at the St Hugh’s High School and seen that there is a lot of talent just waiting to be developed into world beaters, but somehow you get the feeling that those who really should care really don’t.
But it has to change.
It would be an injustice of monumental proportions if kids like Ashinia Miller, Randale Watson, Chad Wright, Smikle, Canniga Raynor, Oshane Harris, and girls like Candicea Bernard and Vanessa Levy, are not given the opportunity to be the best they can be.
Like the sprinters they want to represent and make Jamaica proud so why are they being afforded the opportunity to do so on a level playing field?
Sport should not always be only about the glamour, it should more oftentimes be about the substance as well.