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Jamaicans show there is life after 2012
Posted By: Simon Hart at Feb 21, 2009 at 12:15:00 [General]
Posted in: Sport , Olympics
Tags:
2012, jamaica, London Olympics, UK Sport, Usain Bolt
I was in Jamaica last week to watch Usain Bolt's first race of the year (some people get all the rotten jobs) and can report that the country who won 11 athletics medals at the Beijing Olympics, six of them gold, looks ready to dominate the track for years to come if the sheer number of would-be stars is anything to go by.
Bolt's season-opening 400 metes race was slotted into an athletics meeting for primary and secondary schools in the local Kingston area and I can honestly say I have never seen anything like it.
There were more than 2,000 kids there, crammed onto the infield and around the track, waiting for their chance to run or jump in the scorching heat. The volunteer officials had a hard job to keep order and stop them spilling onto the track.
The standard of athletics looked pretty tasty, too. A local journalist pointed out several world junior medallists. He also told me that 'development' events like this take place every weekend in various parts of Jamaica from the start of January through to the spring.
There was nothing new about this passion for the track, he said, though school teachers all over the country were reporting that, following Bolt's golden hat-trick in Beijing, there had been a huge surge of interest in the short sprints.
With that in mind, it was disconcerting to hear last week's mission statement from, Charles van Commenee, who started work as Britain's new head coach of athletics earlier this month after four years as technical director of the Dutch Olympic Committee.
"I am here to win medals with the athletes in London," he said. "I have to. Medals in London are my goal. I will be focusing very much on the very elite athletes."
He added: "At the end of the day, I want to be judged at the closing ceremony and if I have not hit the target, I am sure I will be gone the next day. I will do anything to make it happen."
His comments beg the question: what happens the day after the closing ceremony?
Van Commenee cannot be blamed for looking no further than the GB medal count in 2012. That is his brief - getting the best out of the current crop of athletes rather than being distracted by the next generation.
But the focus on a future that ends in three years' time is part of a wider obsession with the short term that has crept into Olympic sport in Britain.
When London was awarded the Olympics in 2005, all the talk was about using the Games to build a sporting legacy for future generations.
Now, as the clock ticks down, it is all about maximising the 2012 medal count - a philosophy forced on sports by UK Sport's 'no-compromise' funding mechanism that rewards sports with the best medal chances in London but is much less generous towards sports building for life after 2012.
Sports such as handball, water polo, volleyball, who were never going to be genuinely competitive in 2012 but who had been earmarked as possible medal contenders in 2016, have now been left with only token funding following the Government's refusal to make good a £50million shortfall in private-sector funding.
Shooting, which has had its funding slashed by 76 per cent because it could not guarantee medal success in 2012, has had to reduce its number of funded competitors from 46 to five, with the axe falling mainly on younger shooters. So much for the next generation of Olympians.
As for athletics, it was interesting to hear the views of Christine Ohuruogu last week. She told me that her recipe for building Olympic success began with building a wide base at grassroots level.
As a teenager, she gained inspiration from numerous club athletes who, though faster than her at the time, were never going to become Olympic champions. But without their help in training, she would never have got where she is today. The sport needed healthy levels of participation to flourish at the top.
Which brings us back to Jamaica, and the hordes of schoolchildren in action on a scruffy track in Kingston.
Britain may well rejoice in a record medal haul in 2012 but regarding the London Olympics as an end in itself rather than a gateway to the future will not get us very far when the young Jamaicans come of age.
Posted By: Simon Hart at Feb 21, 2009 at 12:15:00 [General]
Posted in: Sport , Olympics
Tags:
2012, jamaica, London Olympics, UK Sport, Usain Bolt
I was in Jamaica last week to watch Usain Bolt's first race of the year (some people get all the rotten jobs) and can report that the country who won 11 athletics medals at the Beijing Olympics, six of them gold, looks ready to dominate the track for years to come if the sheer number of would-be stars is anything to go by.
Bolt's season-opening 400 metes race was slotted into an athletics meeting for primary and secondary schools in the local Kingston area and I can honestly say I have never seen anything like it.
There were more than 2,000 kids there, crammed onto the infield and around the track, waiting for their chance to run or jump in the scorching heat. The volunteer officials had a hard job to keep order and stop them spilling onto the track.
The standard of athletics looked pretty tasty, too. A local journalist pointed out several world junior medallists. He also told me that 'development' events like this take place every weekend in various parts of Jamaica from the start of January through to the spring.
There was nothing new about this passion for the track, he said, though school teachers all over the country were reporting that, following Bolt's golden hat-trick in Beijing, there had been a huge surge of interest in the short sprints.
With that in mind, it was disconcerting to hear last week's mission statement from, Charles van Commenee, who started work as Britain's new head coach of athletics earlier this month after four years as technical director of the Dutch Olympic Committee.
"I am here to win medals with the athletes in London," he said. "I have to. Medals in London are my goal. I will be focusing very much on the very elite athletes."
He added: "At the end of the day, I want to be judged at the closing ceremony and if I have not hit the target, I am sure I will be gone the next day. I will do anything to make it happen."
His comments beg the question: what happens the day after the closing ceremony?
Van Commenee cannot be blamed for looking no further than the GB medal count in 2012. That is his brief - getting the best out of the current crop of athletes rather than being distracted by the next generation.
But the focus on a future that ends in three years' time is part of a wider obsession with the short term that has crept into Olympic sport in Britain.
When London was awarded the Olympics in 2005, all the talk was about using the Games to build a sporting legacy for future generations.
Now, as the clock ticks down, it is all about maximising the 2012 medal count - a philosophy forced on sports by UK Sport's 'no-compromise' funding mechanism that rewards sports with the best medal chances in London but is much less generous towards sports building for life after 2012.
Sports such as handball, water polo, volleyball, who were never going to be genuinely competitive in 2012 but who had been earmarked as possible medal contenders in 2016, have now been left with only token funding following the Government's refusal to make good a £50million shortfall in private-sector funding.
Shooting, which has had its funding slashed by 76 per cent because it could not guarantee medal success in 2012, has had to reduce its number of funded competitors from 46 to five, with the axe falling mainly on younger shooters. So much for the next generation of Olympians.
As for athletics, it was interesting to hear the views of Christine Ohuruogu last week. She told me that her recipe for building Olympic success began with building a wide base at grassroots level.
As a teenager, she gained inspiration from numerous club athletes who, though faster than her at the time, were never going to become Olympic champions. But without their help in training, she would never have got where she is today. The sport needed healthy levels of participation to flourish at the top.
Which brings us back to Jamaica, and the hordes of schoolchildren in action on a scruffy track in Kingston.
Britain may well rejoice in a record medal haul in 2012 but regarding the London Olympics as an end in itself rather than a gateway to the future will not get us very far when the young Jamaicans come of age.
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