Sean Nero

Ephraim Ser­rette, pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion of Ath­let­ics Ad­min­is­tra­tions (NAAA) says his ex­ec­u­tive plans to over­haul the de­vel­op­ment sys­tems for ath­letes across four dis­ci­plines in track and field, name­ly hur­dles, sprint, medi­um and long jump, in a de­lib­er­ate ef­fort to bol­ster this coun­try's medal hunt in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.

He was speak­ing to the T&T Guardian at Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, on Tues­day, where he was part of the wel­com­ing par­ty which ap­plaud­ed the T&T 2015 Carif­ta Games team on its re­turn from the 44th Carif­ta Games in St Kitts and Nevis with six gold, eight sil­ver and eight bronze medals for third place.

Ser­rette, a for­mer na­tion­al ath­lete him­self, said he be­lieved that the move to over­haul var­i­ous as­pects of the sports had be­come crit­i­cal, as the de­vel­op­men­tal regime across these dis­ci­plines was too ad­hoc.

With no clear guide­lines in place, Ser­rette said, coach­es had free reign re­gard­ing what bench­marks were used to nur­ture the na­tion's ath­letes.

In or­der for this coun­try to ben­e­fit from its in­vest­ment in ath­letes, he said, a na­tion­al qual­i­ty con­trol sys­tem was need­ed to match the jumps and throws events, which was al­ready pay­ing div­i­dends.

"The time has come where we need to put our foot down where the na­tion­al hur­dles pro­gramme, sprint and medi­um and long needs to be in­tro­duced. The coach­es need to ma­ture and un­der­stand what we are do­ing and not just keep their ath­letes to them­selves. We have to work to­geth­er as a unit to pro­duce our ath­letes to rep­re­sent us on the big stage, he said.

Ser­rette lament­ed, how­ev­er, that lo­cal per­for­mances at this year's cham­pi­onships did not sur­pass the medal haul from the pre­vi­ous year.

"It was be­low our ex­pec­ta­tions. We knew we had a fair­ly�I wouldn't say weak team�(but) it was a chal­lenge for us this year...A num­ber of is­sues. We on­ly had four de­vel­op­ment meets, Carif­ta be­ing ear­ly; the loss of use of the (Hase­ly Craw­ford) Sta­di­um, which is al­low­ing us to make de­ci­sions and plan even bet­ter for next year. Car­ni­val is very ear­ly next year, so our de­vel­op­men­tal meets next year would start in No­vem­ber, to give the ath­letes more op­por­tu­ni­ties for com­pe­ti­tion. This year on­ly al­lowed about four de­vel­op­men­tal meets and I think that is in­suf­fi­cient to guide us where the se­lec­tions are con­cerned," he said.

Stand out mo­ments from this coun­try's ath­letes dur­ing com­pe­ti­tion at the Sil­ver Jubliee Ath­let­ic Sta­di­um, over the East­er week­nd, did not es­cape Ser­rette's at­ten­tion, how­ev­er.

"Yes. Our un­der-18 ath­letes. We have a very in­ter­est­ing group of U-18 ath­letes. Some of the analy­sis that we are work­ing on is our na­tion­al pro­gramme�the jumps and throws�and we have seen re­sults," he said.

The NAAA head re­called the Tyriq Horse­ford record break­ing throw in the boys U-18 javelin event and the cham­pi­on per­for­mance by Akan­ni His­lop in the boys U-18 200m. Both ath­letes were from To­ba­go.

Ser­rette dis­closed that be­fore leav­ing lo­cal shores His­lop stat­ed his in­tent to win the event and break the record in the process.

The Carif­ta record was 20.84. His­lop's time was 20.91.

"I think that's com­mend­able. He al­so has an­oth­er year com­pe­ti­tion in U-18 com­pe­ti­tion. I think he is some­one we need to in­vest in be­cause I think that out fu­ture," Ser­rette said.