Ephraim Serrette, president of the National Association of Athletics Administrations (NAAA) says the mission to churn out greater athletes for local and international duties can be realised, but only if organisations stop competing with the NAAA's roll-out of developmental programmes.
"We can't have the NAAA working on development, other corporate bodies working on development in the same sport, the ministry (of sport) and other people. So we need to bring some synergy and have one package working on the development for our athletes in T&T," he said.
Speaking at the NAAA Annual Awards Ceremony held at the Radisson Hotel on Wrightson Road, Port-of-Spain, on Saturday, Serrette said a new partnership with state-owned National Gas Company (NGC) allowed his administration to undertake critical development programmes in 2014.
He said: "We also had a good year administratively. We run a very tight-ship. Our annual budget is a tidy sum and in 2014 we forged partnerships with quite a few corporate bodies. The National Gas Company of T&T really came on board for track and field acknowledging the work that we have been doing and recognising our successes.
Serrette continued: "We were able in 2014 to conduct a lot more developmental work than in previous years. We had a number of programmes. We created history this year (2014) as the first country to host a level three sprints and hurdles (course). Normally, sprints and hurdles are conducted at the regional centre in Puerto Rico and one or maybe two coaches were selected to do that."
"We were able through the sponsorship of the NGC to host that Level 3 (course) in T&T and gave opportunities to at least 18 coaches of which 12 were successful. So we now have 12 more Level 3 sprint and hurdles coaches to work with our athletes. We also held a Level 1 Kids Athlete Youths (programme). Twenty-four new coaches were certified for Kids Athletics Youths", Serrette explained.
He added, new administrative mechanisms in the management of the NAAA were better aligned to the success the nation athletes. He said, "2014 was indeed a good year for track and field. Seven out of eight medals at the Commonwealth Games went to track and field. Our female 400 x 100 (metre) team took the podium in the World Track and Field Relays; records for our female junior sprint relay team at the CAC Games; records broken by the men's 400 x 100 (metre) team at the World Relays and Keshorn Walcott broke the local javelin record on two occasions. So we really had a really good year."
