STADIUM TRACK DRAMA DEMONSTRATES POOR MANAGEMENT ON BEHALF OF GOV’T

Who remembers the drama surrounding the fact the Usain Bolt was unable to travel to Singapore last year to help that country promote the inaugural Youth Olympics?
Well, apparently the Minister of Youth, Culture and Sports, the Honorable Olivia Grange, wanted Usain fresh off his heroic accomplishments in Berlin to help Jamaica lobby Singapore to repair or replace the running track at the National Stadium and Stadium East.
Because of prior commitments and perhaps because he was just too tired, Bolt was unable to travel to Singapore and apparently, the Minister was upset.
They wont admit it but she was. Anyway, Asafa Powell, Veronica Campbell and Dexter Lee travelled to Asia created a great buzz as almost every Jamaican athlete does these days, and the Youth Olympics that were held this summer was a success.
That was a year ago and the plan was that Singapore would have funded the replacements of the tracks.
The way I see it is that a deal is a deal and Jamaica should not have to had wait until just now to have those tracks replaced. It’s less than nine weeks to the start of the track season and the tracks wont be laid by then.
So now, Jamaica could end up losing spots on the IAAF calendar because the meet might either not be held or will be late, very late. Gibson Relays and the Jamaica International Invitational are the meets to which I refer.
Sure, that’s the worse case scenario but still it is a possibility and it’s a big deal because other than Champs, those are the two biggest meets on the local circuit. For those with short memories, last year the stadium was full to overflowing for the JII. People had to be turned away. The late laying of the track puts that success at risk.
Every man and his wife knows what the schedule for the track season is like. Meets start as early January, then there are about 20 meets between then and Champs. Gibson Relays are the last Saturday in February, Champs are the last week in March or thereabouts, depending on when Easter is, and the JII is in May.
Having known this, I would have thought that the requisite effort would have been made to have work started on the stadium track long before now.
Major Desmond Brown, who manages the facilities through Independence Park Limited, however, is telling the nation just this week that to date a contractor is still to be named? Is this for real?
It seems to be that since last November there was more than ample time for all this to be done. If you recall, the repairs were to have started in February this year. A big announcement was made about how Champs was going to be affected, and that some meets scheduled for Stadium East were going to have to be moved into the stadium and vice versa while repairs were being done.
So what happened?
This just reeks of the typical mismanagement we have come to expect for Governments of this country and especially when it comes to sports, something that many of our leaders still see as recreation and not something that Jamaica can reap huge financial benefits from.
We now wait to see if all this bungling will have a crippling effect on track and field and the athletes who will represent Jamaica in the World Championships that come up in South Korea next summer.
We will also wait to see if the mismanagement will work to stifle the significant growth we have seen in the sport in recent times.