Sunday morning just around 3 am T&T time, a bit of Rugby World Cup history was made when, Delon Armitage scored a try for England against Georgia in Dunedin, New Zealand. Armitage is the first native Trinbagonian and West Indian to represent England in the sport of rugby union. In Dunedin he formed another trivia question. This time: “Who is the first native of T&T to score a try in a rugby World Cup?” He was born in San Fernando. His original sporting hero was former Manchester United striker Dwight Yorke. In 1990, he left Trinidad at the age of six years when his mother (Verna Williams) got married to Englishman John Armitage. Watching him do his thing on the world stage I wondered if he could have achieved his full potential had he remained here.
Nowadays when you sit down to watch any global sporting event it is hard to ignore the high standard of skill, fitness, strength and conditioning on display. Research and reading will throw up information that will reveal that GPS, heart rate monitors, lap top computers, spread sheet analysis, software programmes etc, are the rule and norm rather than the exception. The England rugby World Cup team is supported by two dozen people including, a manager and five coaches, a doctor, two physios, a massage therapist ,a Queens Counsel (QC) as their legal counsel and a media relations expert. Here in T&T we call backroom teams “trips for the boys and girls.” What about local national sport organisations? Are they ensuring that modern technology and sport science are key elements in the training and preparing programmes of local based athletes and teams?
This is not a discussion that need degenerate to thinly disguised rumour mongering or idle gossip. Beating and competing with the best in the world requires not only an unshakable attitude but the right environment and systems. Our indigenous party, lime and laidback island culture are not helpful. Neither are some well-meaning and passionate individuals who boast of experience, knowledge and success gained in a different era. Times have changed - nostalgia and the use of outdated ways of thinking hamper progress and change. Experience is constructive when it embraces and encourages new ideas, methods and approaches. When it is dismissive and judgemental it serves little purpose. In 2009, a Core Design Working Group spent a considerable amount of time, energy and research aimed at developing a model called Building Pathways In Sporting Excellence for T&T.
The objective was to create a model that promotes a systematic approach to creating an environment that enables participants to achieve their optimum potential. A basic assumption is a broad and wide spread participation in recreational sport. Elite talent cannot emerge without the economies of scale of large participation numbers. A good support infrastructure will help our sportsmen and women to overcome obstacles and make use of opportunities. It will also enhance this country’s capacity to produce potential champions. We have administrators, coaches and athletes with an abundance of talent and potential. That’s the rub isn’t it? No amount of talent and potential will be enough. Imagine a T&T where our sportsmen and women can have access to modern technology and sport science, to supplement the old faithful technology of crossed fingers. Use your mind’s eye to visualise our national flag being raised and our anthem playing. We are podium ready and can achieve anything we want. Countries and athletes from around the world flock to T&T to learn from us the magic formula.
Source: www.guardian.co.tt
By Brian Lewis