Editorial | Independent post-Paris review

The dust is fast settling on the Paris Olympics. The disappointment felt by Jamaican athletics fans over the island’s performance in track events is receding.

However, this newspaper still supports calls for a serious and constructive review of the outcomes compared to expectations, as well as the developments that may have contributed to these performances. It should also signal what Jamaica must do to further entrench its status as a global track and field power, while advancing in other Olympic sports.

Put another way, while the review (at least in the big, publicly invested way it is being proposed) may be unprecedented, stakeholders, including regularly Jamaicans who emotionally deeply invested in the performance of national athletics teams, as well as corporates who help to make their participation possible, have a right to ask for accountability from those who oversee the enterprise – especially the Jamaica Olympic Association (JOA) and the Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association (JAAA).

For while the JOA and the JAAA may be incorporated as private, member-centred organisations, they are for all practical purposes national institutions, whose actions and behaviours should be transparent, rather than opaque. They owe accountability to other than their registered members.

By most standards, the six medals Jamaica won in Paris would be outstanding for a country of its size and stage of development. Indeed, the island was seventh on the league table for track and field, and 44th overall.

Moreover, the Paris Olympics marked Jamaica’s clear emergence as a significant global player in field events.

Four of the island’s medals were in field disciplines, including two for throws: Roje Stona’s gold for the discus throw; and Rajindra Campbell’s bronze in the shot put. These were Jamaica’s first-ever medals in these disciplines at the Olympics. Additionally, Shanieka Ricketts and Wayne Pinnock won silver medals, respectively, in the women’s triple jump and men’s long jump.

DISAPPOINTING

Nonetheless, the medal hauls were disappointing when measured against expectations based on reputation and past performances. Jamaica and the US are considered the dominant countries in sprints. Most people expected Jamaica to leave Paris with a double-digit medal haul, most of them coming on the tracks, and especially in the shorter races.

As it were, the island gained only two medals on the tracks. They were Kishane Thompson’s silver in the men’s 100 metres dash for his one thousandth of a second loss to America’s Noah Lyles, and Rasheed Broadbell’s bronze in the men’s 110 metres hurdles.

Key medal hopeful, Shericka Jackson, the dominant female 200 metres in recent years and the silver medallist in the 100 metres at the two most recent World Championships, didn’t run in Paris. An apparently ongoing injury reportedly recurred at the games.

Similarly, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, the world’s most decorated female sprinter, who, at 38, was still expected to be among the medals in Paris, also aggravated an injury.

The men and women sprint relay teams had problems on and off the tracks. There were recriminations against the JAAA over the failure by the Jamaica 4x400 men’s relay team, at pre-Olympic events, to qualify for the Paris games. The association’s selection policy for these early qualifying events, especially with respect to the World Relay Championships in the Bahamas, was strongly criticised by some domestic coaches.

The outcomes of Paris are amplified, when placed against the backdrop of pre-games operational shortcomings by the JAAA, and the public quarrels between itself and the JOA over the accreditation and funding of coaches for the Olympics.

INEXCUSABLE FLUBBING

The most egregious of these was the JAAA’s inexcusable flubbing of its athletes registration process that kept the female hammer thrower, Noyoka Clunis, out of the Olympics.

At World Athletics’ cut-off date for athletes to meet its qualifying standards, Ms Clunis was ranked 23rd in the world in her discipline. She was therefore entitled to an automatic sport among the 32 female hammer throwers to compete in Paris.

The JAAA had a deadline of July 4 to submit its list of athletes for the Olympics, which it did, although it appears to have cut it close. However, Ms Clunis’ name wasn’t on the JAAA’s list. In keeping with its rules, the day after the deadline, World Athletics reallocated Ms Clunis’ assumed vacant slot to the next athlete in line, a hammer thrower from the Ukraine.

Realising its blunder, the JAAA attempted to get World Athletics to reconsider its action, arguing that its effort to rectify its mistake was hampered by the absence of electricity and telecommunications services because of Hurricane Beryl.

It’s unfathomable that the JAAA, irrespective of the reasons, would have cut its athletes registration process so close to the deadline, leaving it with no time to fix errors/or omissions.

The JAAA would be expected to go all out in facilitating athletes who, on the face of it, were slow in submitting relevant documentation. Some just need help with complex forms.

It’s also inexplicable that the JAAA, with a board of well-connected and influential people, including a highly respected information and communications technology (ICT) professional in Leroy Cooke, couldn’t find a way, even during a period of hurricane disruptions, to send urgent messages to World Athletics.

Given the contribution of athletics to Jamaica’s iconic global brand, and the centrality of track and field to the country’s sense of wellbeing, it is almost unthinkable that national authorities would fail to facilitate the JAAA in this effort.

The JAAA’s approach to sprinter Tyquendo Tracey’s disciplinary case on the eve of the national athletics raised questions of fairness and natural justice, and appear to suggest the need for a deeper review of its internal processes.

If the JAAA and JOA do conduct deep and reflective reviews after big events, the reports are not readily available to the public. They appear not to be on the publicly accessible spaces on their website. Neither, it seems, are their annual reports.

This should be remedied.

Further, in the case of Paris, and the preparation thereto, both associations should invite independent groups to conduct a full review of what perhaps went wrong.