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HIGH TIME: Bridgette Foster-Hylton

THE PRESIDENT of the Jamaica Olympic Association (JOA) is keen to point out that the country’s athletics does not completely revolve around sprint sensation and world record-breaker Usain Bolt.

While Bolt has rightly grabbed the limelight, medals and records in Beijing and Berlin, Mike Fennell was anxious to point out that Jamaica’s women and the next generation deserve their recognition too.

To underpin Fennell’s point, Jamaica women were regular visitors to the winners’ podium at last August’s world championships in Berlin.

Bridgette Foster-Hylton took the 100m hurdles, Shelley Ann-Fraser and Kerron Stewart came first and second in the 100m final while Simone Facey and Aileen Bailey helped Fraser and Stewart claim the 4x100m gold.

“Whilst a lot of attention is on Usain I think it’s a little unfair to our women. You look at the depth of our female sprinters.

“If you want to see the potential for the future invite people to come to our boys and girls championships (The Champs) which shows the talent coming from below.

“If you go back to 1948 when we first took part in the Olympic Games when we were a colony, the likes of Arthur Wint, Herb MicKinley, George Rhoden exposed us to the world stage. Ever since then we have been progressing.”

Bolt in particular and Jamaica’s athletes in general have told the world of track and field on its head. However, Fennell was a picture of calm when he said;

“To Jamaicans it is not phenomenal because we are doing what we do best. To the rest of the world it must be amazing. Amazing that we have so much talent for a country of our size and resources.

“It hasn’t happened overnight. We have an excellent structure for sport, better still for athletics.

“Some of it is a relic of the English schools system which they left behind for us and we have built on that.

“We have built improvements into our facilities and our coaches. But we are still dependent to a large extent on the volunteer effort.

“There are many people who run athletics in Jamaica, including myself, who are all volunteers.

“People are amazed by this all over the world because people in other countries who do the same thing are very high salaried people.

“This point I think should not be underplayed because Jamaica is benefitting from that volunteer effort.

“But it starts from having superb talent and preparing it and we are now preparing that talent at home.”

Ironically, Fennell collected the Outstanding Athlete of the Year award at the recent Commonwealth Sports Awards ceremony in Leeds on behalf of compatriot Bolt.

The fastest man in the world, with a record time of 9.58 seconds to his name, addressed those in attendance in Leeds via telecast.

But Bolt – who has given his sport the global interest it craved and so badly needed – is always under scrutiny such has been the issue of drugs in the sport. The affable Fennell understands why the cynics circle like vultures.

Fennll told the Voice of Sport: “You can’t avoid the topic. There have been so many high profile athletes that have discovered after the event.

“This is something we cannot avoid and we recognise it. We know it is something that we have to live with.

“But if you are clean, and you are taking all the measures to be clean, then you have nothing to worry about.

“We have to continue to demonstrate that we are clean. Unless we play our part towards keeping sport, not just athletics, clean from drugs then we’d not be doing what we have to do.

“We live in a world full of cynics. Any time that you are that good people believe that it can’t be right.”

Fennell is one of the most respected administrators in world sport. He has been president of the JOA for 31 years - having been elected to the post in 1977.

Since 1994 he he has held the post of president of the Commonwealth Games Federation.

The so-called friendly games will be held in New Dehli, India in October 2010.

“The Commonwealth Games has now positioned itself as a major international event, there’s no question at all about that.

“All international events are competing with other international events and there’s quite a crowd.

“All major events now have to look and see how they can become better and make them more attractive and that’s what we are doing.

“We have a strong family spirit, we’ve carved out a niche for ourselves. They are of a high competitive standard – they are the friendly games.

“The athletes enjoy themselves, the people attending because remember life is about having fun and enjoying yourself. You get high level competition in a friendly atmosphere. It is a unique position that we have preserved and will continue to do so.”

Recently Fennell went public on some of his concerns in regard to India’s quest to host next year’s Commonwealth Games.

“If you look at every major games, when you get into the last year people are looking at things and everybody has a point of view.

“I recall prior to the Athens Olympics (in 2004) a number of people were saying ‘is there an alternative site?’

“We do have a number of concerns in regard to India with some of the venues and some of the operational areas not being as advanced as we’d like that’s why a couple of months ago I had to issue a warning. I said they had to get more serious about achieving the deadlines.

“With the modern day media what it is everybody knows what is happening the second it happens and even before it happens, so what I said received a lot of publicity.

Fennell, the former president and CEO of Air Jamaica, added: “This has been excellent from my point of view. Because of the publicity it has caused a lot of action to take place in India since that time. That has to be sustained through to delivery.”

Published: 02 November 2009
Issue: 1396

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