Car­la Rauseo

Here we go again. More small-mind­ed, self-ab­sorbed peo­ple hold­ing po­si­tions of in­flu­ence and pow­er in an or­gan­i­sa­tion for which, by their ac­tions, they have no qual­i­fi­ca­tions. What the Gym­nas­tics Fed­er­a­tion (TTGF) has done and is do­ing to The­ma Williams, our first ever fe­male gym­nas­tics Olympic can­di­date makes me sick. Please pass the vom­it bag.

TTGF is an or­gan­i­sa­tion that is re­spon­si­ble for "pro­mot­ing and de­vel­op­ing gym­nas­tics on a grass­roots and na­tion­al lev­el." How­ev­er, based on me­dia re­ports, it ap­pears that its han­dling of The­ma Williams and Marisa Dick (Williams' sub­sti­tute), demon­strates that the cur­rent TTGF coun­cil is do­ing the ex­act op­po­site, and putting a spoke in the wheel of an Olympic hope­ful.

Let's be­gin at the Ju­ly 2015 Pan Amer­i­can Games in Toron­to. Marisa Dick com­pet­ed for Trinidad af­ter re­cent­ly re­ha­bil­i­tat­ing a rup­tured Achilles ten­don, a very sig­nif­i­cant in­jury for a gym­nast. In an in­ter­view post­ed in the St. Al­ber­ta Gazette, she stat­ed, "It was my first time do­ing vault again on a hard sur­face since my in­jury."

As phys­i­cal ther­a­pists, we are taught that one of the most ba­sic rules in re­turn­ing an ath­lete to play is to en­sure that they can safe­ly com­plete the en­tire skill/ac­tiv­i­ty PRI­OR to com­pe­ti­tion. If this was her first time on the vault on a hard floor, how then did she prove her fit­ness to com­pete to TTGF?

How did she prove to TTGF that she was the best ath­lete to send to the games? Not on­ly does fail­ure to demon­strate com­pe­tence pri­or to re­turn to com­pe­ti­tion jeop­ar­dise ath­lete safe­ty, in this in­stance it ques­tions the pro­ce­dures/poli­cies of the TTGF in ath­lete se­lec­tion. Sus­pi­cious be­hav­iour num­ber one.

Let's move to just be­fore the World Cham­pi­onships in Glas­gow in Oc­to­ber 2015. A se­lec­tion process was es­tab­lished by TTGF which stat­ed that the "gym­nast who scores the high­est all-round score at the World Gym­nas­tics Cham­pi­onships will be the ath­lete se­lect­ed by the TTGF Se­lec­tion Com­mit­tee to move for­ward to rep­re­sent TTO at the Olympic Test Event."

Williams won that spot by plac­ing 18 ath­letes ahead of Dick. Yet a month lat­er TTGF still had not of­fi­cial­ly an­nounced her as the del­e­gate, un­til the Olympic Com­mit­tee ap­par­ent­ly in­ter­vened to fi­nal­ly con­firm that The­ma was that ath­lete. Time is of the essence when prepar­ing an ath­lete for a mas­sive com­pe­ti­tion such as the Olympics, yet TTGF dragged its ques­tion­able feet on the is­sue. Sus­pi­cious be­hav­iour num­ber two.

Then, sud­den­ly we hear Marisa Dick on Cana­di­an Ra­dio, CBC, speak­ing about hav­ing two more qual­i­fy­ing events in which both she and Williams will have to com­pete in or­der to de­ter­mine which ath­lete goes to the Rio Test event. Huh? Wasn't a se­lec­tion process al­ready im­ple­ment­ed and the re­sults ob­tained?

Fur­ther­more, at that elite lev­el, coach­es have metic­u­lous­ly planned out the an­nu­al train­ing sched­ule. To sud­den­ly in­sert two im­por­tant com­pe­ti­tions in close suc­ces­sion to the World Cham­pi­onships and just be­fore the Olympic Test event goes against the most ba­sic con­cepts of pe­ri­odi­s­a­tion (the ath­lete's train­ing plan), which should be un­der­stood by the TTGF. Is it just in­com­pe­tence or sus­pi­cious be­hav­iour num­ber three, or both?

In ad­di­tion, af­ter the World Cham­pi­onships in 2015, TTGF named for­eign-born and bred, for­eign-trained and "Trinida­di­an on the floor but still Cana­di­an at heart" Marisa Dick (which she so proud­ly post­ed on so­cial me­dia) as its 2015 nom­i­nee for Sports­woman of the Year, de­spite Williams' achieve­ment that same year of be­ing the first T&T gym­nast to ever qual­i­fy for an Olympic event. Sus­pi­cious be­hav­iour num­ber four.

Then most re­cent­ly, mys­tery woman "Geor­gette Heinz" sub­mit­ted an old pho­to­graph of The­ma pos­ing top­less but with no breasts ex­posed, claim­ing it was of­fen­sive, that The­ma was a poor ex­am­ple of an Olympian, and that she should be dis­ci­plined.

Then, in a bizarre and very iron­ic twist of fate, a top­less pic­ture (al­though no breasts could be seen) of Marisa Dick was leaked to the TTGF. Both ath­letes were sent to a "dis­ci­pli­nary com­mit­tee," whose de­ci­sion we are still await­ing over a week lat­er when time is of the essence.Whether a pic­ture is of­fen­sive or not is a mat­ter of sub­jec­tiv­i­ty.

If TTGF needs help in de­cid­ing what is ap­pro­pri­ate or not, they need not make a big brouha­ha over it. If they want our ath­letes to com­pete with the rest of the world, sim­ply look at what the world's Olympians and their fed­er­a­tions are do­ing and they have their an­swer. Nu­mer­ous and much more sexy pic­tures of Olympians pos­ing and cel­e­brat­ing their ath­let­ic bod­ies abound and we need not look fur­ther than ES­PN Mag­a­zine, the Body Is­sue. So the lewd­ness (or lack there­of) of The­ma's and Marisa's pic­tures is not the is­sue.

Yet they are still be­ing sent to the "dis­ci­pli­nary com­mit­tee," pro­long­ing what should be a non-is­sue, and in­stead caus­ing a dis­trac­tion for both ath­letes. Where was the "dis­ci­pli­nary com­mit­tee" when Marisa Dick's coach was ar­rest­ed on a Caribbean Air­lines flight in June 2015? Dou­ble stan­dards...and sus­pi­cious be­hav­iour num­ber five.

Fur­ther­more, ac­cord­ing to Mr Bri­an Lewis, pres­i­dent of TTOC, the tim­ing of the re­lease of The­ma's pic­ture is "con­cern­ing." Not on­ly does it dis­tract the ath­lete and ad­min­is­tra­tors from Olympic prepa­ra­tion, it comes at a con­tro­ver­sial time just af­ter The­ma was fi­nal­ly named by TTOC as the ath­lete to rep­re­sent T&T at the Olympic Test Event, af­ter TTGF failed to do so for rea­sons we do not know.

It is in­ter­est­ing that "Geor­gette Heinz" kept the pic­ture (which The­ma post­ed 12 months ago and im­me­di­ate­ly re­moved not even 24 hours lat­er), and has now pro­duced it at this par­tic­u­lar time. Yet no men­tion has been made by TTGF about in­ves­ti­gat­ing and val­i­dat­ing the source of the sub­mis­sion, since no one in the gym­nas­tics com­mu­ni­ty seems to know a par­ent called Geor­gette Heinz. Sus­pi­cious be­hav­iour num­ber six.

Through its ac­tions, the TTGF has proven its in­com­pe­tence in "pro­mot­ing the sport of gym­nas­tics at a grass­roots and na­tion­al lev­el." They have cre­at­ed a lack of pub­lic con­fi­dence and pub­lic dis­trust in their abil­i­ty to man­age with in­tegri­ty and ef­fi­ca­cy. They must be held ac­count­able. The fu­ture of Trinidad and To­ba­go Gym­nas­tics is at stake...and not look­ing very promis­ing with the cur­rent coun­cil at the helm. I'll keep my vom­it bag handy.

Car­la Rauseo, DPT, CSCS, ATRIC is a Doc­tor of Phys­i­cal Ther­a­py and a Cer­ti­fied Aquat­ic Ther­a­py Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion In­struc­tor at To­tal Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre in San Juan.

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