Anand Ram­per­sad

As the coun­try pre­pares to cel­e­brate 53 years of po­lit­i­cal in­de­pen­dence, sports­women and sports­men have flown the na­tion­al colours with stel­lar per­for­mances in many dis­ci­plines. Our elite ath­letes must be giv­en as much sup­port to de­vel­op and ex­hib­it their sport­ing skills against their peers.

The ben­e­fits do not on­ly re­dound to the ath­letes but al­so the pop­u­la­tion even if it is on­ly tem­po­rary, to feel a great sense of na­tion­al be­long­ing and iden­ti­ty re­gard­less of so­cial class, gen­der, eth­nic­i­ty, and re­li­gious dif­fer­ences.

"Podi­um Push" launched by the Min­istry of Sport (MoS) to sup­port ath­letes in the up­com­ing 2016 Rio Olympics and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC) dri­ve to win 10 gold medals by 2024 is a wel­come ini­tia­tive.

The ideas ar­tic­u­lat­ed by the Di­rec­tor of Sport are not new but com­ing di­rect­ly from the top hon­chos at the Min­istry, there may be some com­mit­ted ef­fort to­ward con­vert­ing the ideas in­to ac­tion.

In light of this new ini­tia­tive by the MoS, there are sev­er­al ob­ser­va­tions to be ven­ti­lat­ed which should al­low for bet­ter con­tex­tu­al­iza­tion of the 'Podi­um Push' ini­tia­tive.

Does this pro­gramme fall with­in a gen­er­al Mas­ter Plan for Sport over a spe­cif­ic pe­ri­od? This Mas­ter Plan should ad­dress but not lim­it­ed to:

�2 Clear­ly de­fined the ob­jec­tives, goals and strate­gies for elite ath­letes

�2 Clear­ly de­fined the ob­jec­tives, goals and strate­gies for sport for de­vel­op­ment (com­mu­ni­ties, so­cial pro­grammes, youth de­vel­op­ment, gen­der and sport, health and sport etc)

�2 The pro­fes­sion­al ad­min­is­tra­tion of Na­tion­al Sport­ing Or­gan­i­sa­tions/ Na­tion­al Gov­ern­ing Bod­ies. The use of grad­u­ates from var­i­ous sport­ing pro­grammes at UWI and UTT should help strength­en the hu­man re­sources ca­pac­i­ty of many sport­ing bod­ies. These per­son­nel must al­so be of­fered the right in­duce­ments to of­fer their ser­vices.

�2 A rigid tier reg­is­ter of the coun­try's top coach­es, sport med­ical per­son­nel, train­ers, sport psy­chol­o­gists, nu­tri­tion­ists etc to en­sure that they are con­stant­ly up­grad­ing their skillsets to meet the changes be­ing brought about in their re­spec­tive fields es­pe­cial­ly as it re­lates to evolv­ing tech­nolo­gies.

�2 The im­por­tance of Tal­ent Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion (TI) es­pe­cial­ly as the 'Podi­um Push' ini­tia­tive is fo­cus­ing on ath­letes medal­ing gold, sil­ver or bronze. There has to be a sys­tem­at­ic strat­e­gy which will in­clude pro­fes­sion­al scouts, coach­es, med­ical per­son­nel etc iden­ti­fy tal­ent ear­ly so that they can be honed in­to de­sired world class beat­ers in their re­spec­tive dis­ci­plines.

�2 Fo­cus­ing on all sports and not just the tra­di­tion­al sports such as crick­et, foot­ball and ath­let­ics. Sports­women and Sports­men from all sport­ing dis­ci­plines must not on­ly be told but ex­pe­ri­ence eq­ui­ty in the way sport is ad­min­is­tered es­pe­cial­ly as it re­lates to fund­ing.

�2 Through­out the world, re­search in sport is a grow­ing not on­ly in the area of ki­ne­si­ol­o­gy but al­so in sport man­age­ment and sport psy­chol­o­gy. The UWI and UTT sports pro­grammes can con­tribute through their re­search to as­sist in the draft­ing, im­ple­ment­ing, mon­i­tor­ing and eval­u­at­ing sport pol­i­cy and pro­grammes. This has been a glar­ing weak­ness­es in sport de­vel­op­ment in the coun­try.

�2 Fi­nanc­ing strate­gies must be clear­ly stat­ed. For in­stance, the Di­rec­tor of Sport stop short of stat­ing the bud­get­ed costs of the 'Podi­um Push' ini­tia­tive. Al­though sport is seen as a gen­er­al good, tax­pay­ers' monies must be prop­er­ly ac­count­ed for es­pe­cial­ly in light of falling oil and gas prices. There has to be a sense of val­ue for monies in­vest­ed in any sport­ing pro­gramme. Am­ne­sia should not lead us to for­get the re­cent wastages of "Life­S­port" and the Tarou­ba Sta­di­um to name a few projects that were sup­posed to of­fer im­mense ben­e­fits.

�2 The role of the gov­ern­ment/ min­istry or in­de­pen­dent en­ti­ty must be clear­ly de­fined in terms of gov­er­nance. Will there be an in­de­pen­dent body that is free of gov­ern­ment in­ter­fer­ence to con­duct the op­er­a­tions of sport in the coun­try? There are too many in­stances where the per­son­al­i­ties have soured the re­la­tion­ship be­tween sport ad­min­is­tra­tors and min­is­ters of sport for eg, crick­et, and foot­ball.

�2 The pri­vate sec­tor es­pe­cial­ly multi­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tions must be en­cour­aged to in­vest in­to a sport­ing fund that can con­tribute to meet­ing the costs of de­vel­op­ing both elite ath­letes and sport for de­vel­op­ment. The na­tion­al lot­tery sys­tem as have been done in Eng­land should be ex­plored ful­ly to­ward con­tribut­ing to the ob­jec­tives and goals of a Mas­ter Plan for Sport.

�2 The need for an in­de­pen­dent sport­ing body to op­er­ate sport will re­duce the po­ten­tial fall­out of pol­i­cy con­ti­nu­ity when­ev­er gov­ern­ments are re­placed. There is no guar­an­tee that if the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion is re­placed at the next gen­er­al elec­tions that there will be con­ti­nu­ity of the 'Podi­um Push' pro­gramme. The same can al­so be said for the 'Hoop of Life' pro­gramme.

Every ef­fort should be made to de­vel­op our sports­women and sports­men. This de­vel­op­ment should emerge out of an in­te­grat­ed sys­tem­at­ic mas­ter plan for sport which will al­low for prop­er gov­er­nance, ac­count­abil­i­ty, sus­tain­abil­i­ty, re­search, fund­ing and the use of the most qual­i­fied hu­man re­source per­son­nel.

They key is to pro­vide a foun­da­tion for every­one in­volved in sport to have suf­fi­cient ca­pac­i­ty to de­vel­op ful­ly.