"Goatie" Robinson responds...

Hi Mike, I once again congratulate you for using your medium to raise awareness of activities within the Diaspora especially in the area of sports. Your postings entitled

“A New Approach Is Needed” and “GOC Must Take Action on Delinquent Athletes” are welcoming and I am sure that they will be well received by persons who have a genuine interest in the development of the true potential of our sportsmen and sportswomen.

These articles were thought provoking as they speak volumes of the potential and possible world class achievement of our athletes. You speak of work plan being rolled out in a few weeks. Personally a very important, if not the most important, area to address is the way we have administered and managed sports in the past decade.  In this instance your articles highlight Track & Field but the same can be said of nearly every sporting activity notably so, the big dollars budgeted bodies like the Grenada Olympic Committee, the Grenada Football Association and The Grenada Cricket Association. I am sure that if an independent audit is done into the millions of dollars investments in Sports Infrastructure and Human Resources between 2000 -2010 it will triple the budget of the period 1980 – 1999. But then with the exception of maybe Ministers of Sports there has been minimal change in leadership in the past 15 years.

I concur with your issues, suggestions and recommendations but I hasten to note that I have read, heard or seen them proposed before and they have either not been dealt with properly or totally ignored by those in authority. I suppose the timing is good for debate given the fact that we the Grenadian public seem to get intimately involved in four-year cycles - every four years when we have elections and every four years when Olympics come around. More so, in recent times based on the achievements of the likes of Alleyne Francique and lesser focused on Neisha Bernard-Thomas, Randy Lewis and Hazel-ann Regis. We are presently hyped by the performances of Kirani and Rondell.

Personal Comments:

1. I can’t see how a proper new facility will be built by 2012.
2. All the events you have listed are in order and the collaboration of government and other stakeholders are important. However, a question that has to be seriously addressed is why there has been such a significant decline in quality National Athletic Events notwithstanding the fact that Inter-col has been able to maintain high and improved standards.
3. I support the idea that athletes, benefiting from any program funded by or supported by the ministry or national organization be held responsible and accountable, This was the way it was in the 80s and 90s. The responsibility to ensure that this happen in my opinion is also the responsibility of our administrators.
4. An urgent overhaul of our arcade administrative structures that facilitate incompetent, unproductive, shortsighted ad egoistic administrators in most associations or committees. However, given the way we operate it may be considered prejudicial to suggest or recommend that we do not make the mistakes of the 2004 Olympics and the 2009 CARIFTA Games.
5. I can recall Grenada being the envy of the rest of the OECS and wider Caribbean when it came to organizing sporting events. Today, we are the laughing stock.

Lastly, I applaud the performance of our relay teams at the Penn Relay but I think it was ridiculous for our decision makers to give priority to the qualifying of a relay team (they knew or should have known could not do the qualifying times at Penns). Also priority should have been given to Kirani representing Grenada at the CARIFTA Games instead of a US track meet where he clocked 45.12 secs in the 400m the same weekend.

I am reminded of CARIFTA 2009. Who would have thought that Grenada could have lost the 4x400m relay? Was a Post Mortem done to identity why?

Finally, I will like to encourage all Grenadians who share your views to get on board and speak out in an effort to bring about change. Just as we demand from the politicians, I think we should also demand from our Administrators, Transparency and Accountability.