An­dre Bap­tise

The prob­lem is that we all want suc­cess too quick­ly and are not will­ing to work at it.That, many be­lieve, is what makes the dif­fer­ence be­tween a sport­ing per­son from T&T and one from else­where.We, as a peo­ple have had things too easy, and there­fore los­ing and mov­ing on is ac­cept­able be­cause there is al­ways some­thing else to do rather than in Ja­maica, Guyana or the Is­lands, where this is the on­ly op­por­tu­ni­ty to make a name and life for them­selves.

All of the above are ex­cus­es, plain and sim­ple. This is not ac­cept­able. We have grown ac­cus­tomed to medi­oc­rity in sport.This is not meant to hurt our sports­men and women but rather to chal­lenge them and the var­i­ous sport­ing ad­min­is­tra­tors to im­prove their tar­gets and ob­jec­tives.In Scot­land, there are days when you lis­ten and read about trau­ma and pain, many of those rep­re­sent­ing their coun­try have en­dured but still they have not on­ly risen, they have al­so medalled and in so do­ing in­spired oth­ers to fol­low in their foot­steps.It is easy to win and smile and shake hands and be hap­py, and be­lieve that you rule the world. But when a man los­es, you can tell his char­ac­ter. Richard Thomp­son and Ke­ston Bled­man both were hurt as nei­ther made it to the 100 me­tres fi­nals but that did not de­ter them in talk­ing out their an­guish.

They will both be back, maybe not to­mor­row or the day af­ter, but you can guar­an­tee both are built of stern­er stuff, the sort of de­sire we need to wit­ness more in our young and up­com­ing sport­ing can­di­dates.To rep­re­sent your coun­try is not on­ly a priv­i­lege, it is a right you can­not and should not abuse as I watched the young men and women from all over the world, hug, their coach­es and cry when they were de­feat­ed. I can feel the emo­tion in them, whether it was box­ing, squash or gym­nas­tics. It is this pain that will make you bet­ter as young swim­mers from Scot­land ex­plained so elo­quent­ly re­cent­ly.

The idea that they were not achiev­ing the re­quired times hurt so much they had to make per­son­al changes and sac­ri­fices. In some cas­es, it meant chang­ing a man­ag­er, a coach or even a club. In T&T, many of our ath­letes who should be do­ing like­wise seem afraid to do this be­cause they are in fear of be­ing vic­timised.I would ad­vise the Olympic Com­mit­tee to get more in­volved in some sports to en­sure they are not be­ing con­fused by talk and false opin­ion. And while I un­der­stand the TTOC is short staff and un­der fund­ed, they are the most trust­wor­thy and in­de­pen­dent sport­ing body in the coun­try, and must get them­selves in­volved if we are to move for­ward, not back­ward from these Games.Al­ready we can ex­pect many to point fin­gers even though there are still fur­ther op­por­tu­ni­ties for suc­cess, ex­pec­ta­tions were un­usu­al­ly high in 2014 be­cause of the large con­tin­gent and be­cause we have a nat­u­ral­ly mis­guid­ed be­lief that fol­low­ing on from pre­vi­ous medal hauls, this one would grow on its own, with­out any prop­er rec­on­cil­i­a­tion with the re­al­i­ty that the rest of the Caribbean, not on­ly the world is mov­ing for­ward.

So as we try to find the smile back in sports af­ter some pe­ri­od of dis­ap­point­ment, let us ob­serve and learn from so many of the oth­er na­tions at these Com­mon­wealth Games, that un­der­stood the im­por­tance of coun­try above self.

I have just de­cid­ed, that the first per­sons that de­serve to wear kilts are some of the of­fi­cials on this tour, George Com­mis­siong, Dr Ter­ry Ali, Lester Os­ouna, George Bovell II and Kevin Tin­to. We will have to watch for the pay­ment plan to pur­chase these kilts and the colours they each choose.As for me, I am now look­ing for an­oth­er book­ie.