LOOKING AHEAD NOW SO WE DONT FALTER LATER

There is no one reason why over the past two years more and more kids are turning out for track training. It could be that they were inspired by the success of Asafa Powell, Sherone Simpson, Brigette Foster, Veronica Campbell Brown and others on the Grand Prix circuit. It could also be the incredible success of Usain Bolt and company at the Beijing Olympics, and last year’s World Championships, Jamaica’s best global performance ever.
Whatever the reason, this country is witnessing a remarkable rate of turnout of kids wanting to become the next track star, but are we equipped to deal with it?
Going through the high school system is challenging enough but many of our kids will now want to stay here in Jamaica to pursue their academic and athletic careers.
Will Jamaica be able to support this? There are many local coaches who are now qualified to take our athletes to the next level but only a handful have that established reputation that will attract potential stars to their already overburdened clubs.
Stephen Francis and Glen Mills are easily among the best coaches in the world but they wont be around forever. The time has come for the governing bodies to start improving on the coaching talent available, whether that means making available more advanced courses to the current crop of coaches or hand-picking a few of the more outstanding coaches and helping them hone their specific skills, is up to the authorities but there has to be more options available to the growing number of athletes who want to be trained by home-grown talent.
The University of Technology, for example, may end up putting another campus in Trelawny, surely they dont expect Stephen Francis to be at two places at the same time.
Clearly there needs to be other high quality coaches available to help develop the available talent out west.
We cant wait, we have to start acting now. Improving the quality of our track and field coaching can also have the effect of attracting athletes from overseas to come here to train – sports tourism.
If we dont act fast we can easily lose claim to being the sprint factory of the world in less than a decade from now when we run the risk of returning to the days when we were producing one or two world-beating athletes every four years or so. We have long gone past that stage and its now time to build onto greater things.