Pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion of Ath­let­ic Ad­min­is­tra­tion of T&T (NAAATT), George Comis­siong, is not hap­py with this coun­try's medal-less per­for­mance at the World Ath­let­ics Out­door Cham­pi­onships held in Bu­dapest, Hun­gary in Au­gust.

The lo­cal ath­letes missed out on win­ning a medal for the third straight World event. The last time T&T mount­ed the podi­um was at the 2017 edi­tion in Lon­don, Eng­land, when the men's 4x400 me­tres team of Jar­rin Solomon, Jereem Richards, Machel Ce­de­nio and Lalonde Gor­don struck gold. Richards al­so cap­tured bronze in the men's 200m fi­nal. The woes con­tin­ued in Bu­dapest as no lo­cal com­peti­tors reached the medal round for the first time since the 1999 Worlds in Seville, Spain.

Richards and Michelle-Lee Ahye were T&T's best fin­ish­ers in the Hun­gar­i­an cap­i­tal as both ad­vanced to the semi­fi­nal round of the men's 400m and women's 100m, re­spec­tive­ly. The 2012 Olympic cham­pi­on Keshorn Wal­cott was in­jured while warm­ing up for the men's javelin qual­i­fy­ing. Leah Bertrand, in her World Cham­pi­onships de­but, did not get past the heats of the women's 100m.

Comis­siong told Guardian Me­dia Sports though he was dis­ap­point­ed, he was not sur­prised.

"I think it was a year of mixed suc­cess­es. Ob­vi­ous­ly, there were things we were dis­ap­point­ed in. I, by na­ture, am prag­mat­ic. It was ob­vi­ous. Go­ing in­to the com­pe­ti­tion we had three re­lay teams (women's 4x100m, men's 4x400m & 4x400m) that were el­i­gi­ble to com­pete. Giv­en where they were lo­cat­ed among the top 16 to me it was un­re­al­is­tic to ex­pect that we would have medalled," he said.

The na­tion­al women's 4x100m team were ranked 15th among the 16 qual­i­fied teams while the men's 4x100m squad was 16th. The men's 4x400m run­ners qual­i­fied for Bu­dapest af­ter fin­ish­ing fifth at the 2022 World Cham­pi­onships.

He added that de­spite the be­low-par per­for­mance in Hun­gary, lo­cal ath­letes im­pressed at the Carif­ta Games and the oth­er re­gion­al meets.

"We end­ed the sea­son on a not-so-good note but ear­li­er in the sea­son I think we had some good per­for­mances-Carif­ta Games (in the Ba­hamas), NACAC Un­der-18 and 23 (Cham­pi­onships in Cos­ta Ri­ca) and the CAC (Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean) Games (in El Sal­vador). Even the Com­mon­wealth Youth Games we have im­proved on the per­for­mances," said Comis­siong, who added that the un­avail­abil­i­ty of the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um for most of this sea­son con­tributed to the drop in per­for­mance.

The Sta­di­um was closed from March to Ju­ly for up­grade works ahead of the Com­mon­wealth Youth Games host­ed in T&T. The lo­cal ath­let­ic boss said the NAAATT has em­barked on a se­ries of coach­ing clin­ics fo­cus­ing on the top ju­nior (U-20) ath­letes across the coun­try in prepa­ra­tion for the up­com­ing 2024 sea­son. The first clin­ics were held on the week­end at the Dwight Yorke Sta­di­um in Ba­co­let, To­ba­go and will con­tin­ue at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo, Port-of-Spain this week­end (Oc­to­ber 14-15).

"I don't think that is all gloom and doom," said Comis­siong. "We have a young crop of ath­letes com­ing up and we need to fo­cus on them. Hence the se­ries of spe­cialised clin­ics. The Clin­ics are not in­tend­ed the se­nior ath­letes. We are not turn­ing in any se­nior ath­letes who want to fine-tune their tech­nique or so but the tar­get is re­al­ly the ju­nior ath­letes. (This week­end) We would, in fact, be run­ning the clin­ic for mid­dle and long-dis­tance events."

The NAAATT is al­so em­bark­ing on tech­ni­cal of­fi­ci­at­ing train­ing on both is­lands.

"The tech­ni­cal of­fi­ci­at­ing course, it's five in Trinidad and five in To­ba­go. It means we would have a cadre of trained of­fi­cials to join those we al­ready have. If things go as planned, 25 in To­ba­go and a new co­hort in Trinidad, and we are hop­ing to min­imise hav­ing to shift of­fi­cials be­tween the two is­lands to fa­cil­i­tate the con­duct of meets."