CAS­TRIES – Pres­i­dent of the St Lu­cia Olympic Com­mit­tee (SLOC) Al­fred Em­manuel has ac­cused CARI­COM of fail­ing re­gion­al ath­letes and sport­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions by its in­abil­i­ty to make in­tra-re­gion­al trav­el af­ford­able.

Speak­ing dur­ing Sat­ur­day’s edi­tion of the Talk­Sports pro­gramme, Em­manuel ex­pressed frus­tra­tion over the long­stand­ing trans­porta­tion dif­fi­cul­ties that con­tin­ue to af­fect re­gion­al com­pe­ti­tions, ath­lete move­ment, and sports de­vel­op­ment across the Caribbean.

Asked whether CARI­COM and re­gion­al sport­ing fed­er­a­tions could work to­geth­er more ef­fec­tive­ly to im­prove trav­el through­out the re­gion, Em­manuel did not hide his dis­ap­point­ment.

“Well, CARI­COM… I’ve had my bat­tles with CARI­COM, and I would be fool­ish not to make pub­lic what I would have told the CARI­COM per­sons in pri­vate.

“CARI­COM has failed us, and failed us mis­er­ably, when it comes to sport and sport de­vel­op­ment,” Em­manuel de­clared.

Em­manuel sug­gest­ed that solv­ing the is­sue re­quired greater po­lit­i­cal com­mit­ment and a stronger ap­pre­ci­a­tion for sport at the pol­i­cy-mak­ing lev­el.

“I think it has to do with the mind­set of politi­cians,” he said.

Em­manuel ex­pressed par­tic­u­lar dis­ap­point­ment that for­mer ath­letes who tran­si­tion in­to po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship po­si­tions of­ten ap­pear re­luc­tant to pub­licly cham­pi­on sports de­vel­op­ment is­sues once in gov­ern­ment.

“At times you sit and won­der – wasn’t this guy a na­tion­al ath­lete in this sport or that sport? Wasn’t this young la­dy an ath­lete in this sport or that sport?

“Now that they’re in a po­si­tion to re­al­ly dri­ve the process, they’re some­what lost with­in the whole process,” Em­manuel con­tend­ed.

“You’re not hear­ing the voic­es. You’re not see­ing the pub­lic pro­nounce­ments as to what they be­lieve should be done. To me, once you’ve en­tered the class­room of the politi­cian, I think then sport is re­al­ly not on the front burn­er.”

CMC