SEEMS FOOTBALL isn’t the only sport making a big comeback in the community.
Add basketball and distance running to this year’s slate of independence celebrations as the National Sports Council (NSC) seeks to bolster its well-received inter-parish sports programme with two more island-wide championships.
Minister of Sports Stephen Lashley confirmed the addition of the two sports yesterday after initially proposing their inclusion back in January following the big success of the inter-parish road tennis initiative.
“The mandate of the National Sports Council is to penetrate our communities,” reasoned Lashley during the press launch at the NSC’s headquarters in Blenheim.
“From the community level, we can actually have coming out of that, national players and indeed international players. This programme is [also] geared towards strengthening the community base and of course giving encouragement to the various teams across Barbados.”
“I have called on the board of the National Sports Council to reinvigorate our communities again with these sports and as we move on to add more sports.”
The move comes less than a year after the inaugural island-wide road tennis tournament proved a major hit across Barbados, as the competition had a huge spectator following throughout the various districts and for the grand finale at Dover.
It’s the type of response that coordinator George Shepherd is hoping for both the road races and basketball, especially the latter, which has suffered with poor spectator turnout over the last decade.
“There are no more clubs, there are only teams. [So] the community is where we have to base our sports for the development and the longevity of the sport,” Shepherd advanced.
“You see a lot of people out there practising on the courts but then you will not see them in the teams and you wonder why. Taking them into the communities now, you will get a chance to see these players who are talented but don’t represent any teams.”
With Christ Church and St Michael split into two and four teams respectively, the basketball tournament is expected to feature 16 teams grouped into four zones, where each squad will play three round robin games.
From there, the top two teams from each zone will advance to an eight-team quarter-finals, with the winners of those four matches moving on to the semi-finals before culminating in a grand final at a venue and date yet to be decided.
No date has been scheduled for the road race finale either, though a route has already been mapped out to start outside the Garfield Sobers Sports Complex, Wildey, St Michael.
It is slated to be the climax of a 12-race series of 5k road races that will run in each of the country’s 11 parishes – with St Michael being allotted two races. Those events will be held on Sundays and the first 15 finishers of each race will gain automatic qualification for the final.
“Around independence years ago, we always had the various road races,” said Lashley
“There are many running enthusiasts in Barbados, and we want to say that this is not open only to young people but those who participate at any level.”
