Editorial | It’s the JAAA again …

The Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association (JAAA) is prone to unforced error and own-goals that disenfranchise athletes.

And unless the JAAA can mount a compelling case to the contrary, it seems obvious that Sanique Walker, the 400- metres hurdler, is the latest victim of the JAAA’s bad habits.

Named as an alternate for Jamaica’s team to the World Championships that began in Tokyo, Japan yesterday, Ms Walker would, in normal circumstances, now be in Tokyo to replace Rushell Clayton, who withdrew because of injury. She won’t be there because she hasn’t done the gender-affirming, or SRY gene test mandated by World Athletics, the sport’s governing body.

There are parallels and similarities between this development and past actions by the JAAA to demonstrate the laxity with which the association often conducts its business.

Recall the case of Nayoka Clunis, Jamaica’s top female hammer thrower, who was ranked 23rd in the world at the qualifying period and therefore was an automatic qualifier for last year’s Olympics in Paris. Except that Ms Clunis didn’t make it to France for the games. Her place in the competition was taken by a Ukrainian athlete, Iryna Klymets.

It wasn’t Ms Clunis’ fault. Her name wasn’t on the list of Jamaican participants to the games that the JAAA submitted to World Athletics. By the time the association discovered the error, which it blamed variously on electricity outages, lack of email service and Internet problems because of the passage of Hurricane Beryl, World Athletics had already awarded her place to Ms Klymets.

Nayoka Clunis is Jamaica’s top female hammer thrower – and for that matter, its top hammer thrower. Currently, she is ranked 32nd by World Athletics, track and field athletics global governing body.

And there was the issue of Professor Rachael Irving, who teaches sports science and biochemistry at The University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona, and has researched the effect of heat on athletes.

HEATWAVE

At the time of the Olympics, Paris, like most of Europe and the rest of the world, faced a prolonged heatwave. Professor Irvine’s knowledge of these issues, in this newspaper’s estimation, would have been useful to the JAAA. Neither that organisation nor the Jamaica Olympic Association (JOA) seemed prepared to listen.

“Even though for more than two months I tried to meet with those who would make a difference, to date I am yet to get a reply from the JOA or the JAAA,” Professor Irvine wrote in The Gleaner at the time of the games.

No one has denied her claim.

So now there is the situation regarding Ms Walker and the SRY gene test to determine its specific location on the chromosome, which determines whether a person develops as male or female. Or in the event of a malfunction, having the appearance of one gender while having some of the characteristics of the other.

This has been an issue for World Athletics since the advent of the South African middle-distance runner Caster Semenya, who was brought up as female, but who World Athletics argued produced too much of the male hormone, testosterone, to continue to compete in female races without drug-induced lowering of the testosterone levels.

This year, after several court battles with Ms Semenya and different many failed protocols to determine gender participation, World Athletics decreed that all female athletes should have, by September 1, undergo a once-in-a-lifetime SRY test to determine their biological gender.

SRY TEST

Jamaican athletes at the recent North America, Central America and Caribbean (NACAC) Championship were expected to have their SRY test done there. JAAA officials claim that “logistical challenges” caused Ms Walker not to have done so.

According to Ms Walker, there was a list with the names of athletes at the championships in The Bahamas to do the test. Hers wasn’t on it. Those lists again ...

She told Jamaica Observer newspaper: “There was a list of athletes that were chosen to do the test in The Bahamas and my name was not a part of that list and that is why we are in this predicament now. Initially, I thought that as an alternate, I would have travelled with the team to Tokyo, received the same information, and been properly prepared if needed. Instead, I found out that was not the case.”

These failures, or the perception of athletes that they are not at the centre of things, continue to encase the JAAA. Like its failure to take alternates to games, as was the case with Kemba Nelson, the sprinter, who was drafted into the relay team in Paris after the injury to Shericka Jackson. She had to be hurriedly brought from Spain.

The JAAA, and the general governance on sport in Jamaica, as this newspaper has called for, is in need of a major review and overhaul.