Orville Taylor | Allegiance switch

It might be impossible for the average person to walk a day in their shoes. After all, they wear between size 13 and 15. These giants of men set new watermarks last year at the Paris Olympics. Then another hop skipped and jumped to world leads. Unfortunately, injury had something else to say. The four sum is completed by a long jumper, who won three straight silver medals.

While comments and criticisms cannot be reserved for persons who have donned the black, green and gold, as some apologists often assert; unless one has had to wonder where one’s next meal or bus fare is coming from; such persons should simply shut up.

We Jamaicans play around with balls a lot. However, there is a big difference between throwing around a few careless or loose lipped words and throwing 16 pounds of a modern-day cannon ball. Similarly, although homophones; it is not the same to discuss, and the discus.

So, history-making discus gold medallist, Roje Stona, shot put bronze medal winner, Rajindra Campbell, along with triple jumper, Jaydon Hibbert and long jumper Wayne Pinnock, have jumped ship. However, the paperwork is worked out, these individuals, along with Nigerian Favour Ofili will be in Turkish uniform, at the 2028 Olympics.

Although it does appear as if large quantities of material incentives were involved, the rules, which govern international athletics, do not allow the ‘buying’ of any athlete. After all, citizenship, ought to be something very precious.

Still, inasmuch as track and field is the most global sport, its stars are not well remunerated. Earnings of footballers, NFL players, NBA, NHL and MLB sportsmen all dwarf even the most iconic of sprinters. Sponsors put money where the excitement lies, and unfortunately, unless one is at the pinnacle of sprinting, one’s economic future is simply modest.

PART TIME ATHLETES

Many of the legendary Kenyan record breakers and medallists are part-time athletes who hold down full-time jobs in the security forces. Believe it or not, a significant number of American athletes do not have sponsorships deals. These include persons who have worn the red white and blue in international competitions.

Let us call a spade a shovel. In both the US and Jamaica, hardly anyone remembers you, unless you are a 100 or 200 metres sprinter. And regrettably, the fanfare and tone are sometimes not set by government.

For example, apart from the Helsinki quartet, we do not get excited about even 400 metres runners. Imagine, 42 years later, despite Bertland Cameron becoming our first world champion in athletics, there is no statue. Deon Hemmings stunned the world in 1996 and gave the Anglophone Caribbean our first female gold medal in the Olympics. Yet, for the strangest of reasons, she like Cameron has no effigy in bronze.

Field events are particularly ungrateful. Hardly anyone remember that Dorian Scott put our shot put on the map. Who remembers Olivia McKoy? A phenomenal athlete, who threw everything, except a tantrum, she is the national record holder for the javelin and represented us between 1992 and 2008, from Carifta to Olympics. Google her story!

Fedrick Dacres won our first throwing medal, a silver, as recently as 2019 and set our national record of 70.78. A sobering fact, it is still better than the distance Stona threw to win gold in Paris last year. Nevertheless, within two years, when after enduring injuries to his throwing finger and surgeries, there was so much bad mouthing, that his critics had halitosis.

We might recall the tears on national television set by thrower Jason ‘Dads’ Morgan, who felt like ‘no man’ should feel, because he was isolated like an island.

RUE

I carry no brief for sprinter Asafa Powell, who seems to rue his decision to run for his country. However, speaking of isolation, Olympic and World champion hurdler Omar McLeod justifiably feels undone by his own. His high school Fortis brother, Hibbert, whose flair and panache reminds me of him, might very have taken sleep to mark death. Interestingly, Pinnock is also a graduate of Kingston College.

For some of us who return or stay at home to struggle ‘inna di Gideon’ it is simply a choice. Many siblings chose the land of ‘farrin’ because of the opportunities. Hundreds of nurses, doctors, professors, and others who fuel the Jamaica miracle in south Florida are now Americans.

What say we about Jamaicans, who leave our military or police force to become American servicewomen and men? Stay closer. Three years ago, the Caribbean police welfare association had multiple delegates from the other English-speaking countries and territories, being ‘so so’ Jamaican, very comfortable with saying, “Wha fi enda?”

Imagine making a point and a Bermudan sergeant responds, “Sah! Mi edeh tell yu!”

Personal decisions are simply that, and at the end of the day, we have to seek economic security after our careers end.

The disquiet expressed is hypocritical, because we did not create a furore, when Jacques Harvey and Winston Barnes went Turk as well. Perhaps, because it was the era of Bolt and Powell, when only the gravy was available, no one cried ‘fowl’.

Yet, we are the same people who import Africans to wear, purple, navy blue, green and black and other colours to win Champs.

Few complained when Andrew Hudson switched allegiance to run the 200 metres for us. Adele Tracey is again wearing our colours, Yvonne Graham, a German, has our middle-distance records.

Our reggae boys have players who think that the Jamaican curse word is a fabric made of bamboo and cannot string two Patwa words together.

By the way, can we keep any of these Kenyan boys?

Orville Taylor is senior lecturer at the Department of Sociology at The University of the West Indies, a radio talk-show host, and author of ‘Broken Promises, Hearts and Pockets’. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and tayloronblackline@hotmail.com.