The following is the fifth and final part of a series in response to an article written by former Amateur Athletic Association secretary Joyann Clarke in the SUNDAY SUN of August 19.
It is noteworthy that only two or three persons are still singing the same song about the uniform that I wore on the podium, and that although I have addressed this matter several times in the past, and in my article on April 12, 2006, in response to Ms Clarke’s on March 12, 2006, she still does not accept my explanation.
Now, she has called on me again to do the same thing. So here I am again, with a more elaborate version of what I said then. Hopefully, this will be my last public statement on the matter.
Perhaps it is more notable who is not, and who never wasted time, singing that tune. It is interesting that the BOA officials, who actually paid for me to be there, never publicly, or privately to me, voiced their concern over this matter.
For instance, Mr Steve Stoute (president of the BOA) and Mr Erskine Simmons (general secretary of the BOA) visited my room in the athletes village on the morning after the medal ceremony, in an unexpected emotional meeting, but never mentioned any issues with the uniform that I wore on the podium. Perhaps they realized that winning that medal was a great boost for the Barbados Olympic movement and our nation as a whole.
I believe that most Barbadians who saw the event remembered seeing me draped in the national flag, smiling proudly, and taking pictures with the other medallists during our victory lap in front of the Press – pictures which were featured on the Internet and in many newspapers around the world, including our local ones.
Proud Bajan
Anyone who looks at that photo (which accompanies this article) will see me as a proud Bajan, smiling much more broadly than my fellow medallists. Some of your readers may remember seeing a photo of this event, which was published on the front page of the Sunday Sun on September 23, 2000. Two copies of that page hang in my family room in Barbados.
Does all of what I have said immediately above indicate an individual who despised his country or his Olympic association so much that he would refuse to wear the official uniform at the medal ceremony? I think not!
It is well known that a country’s national flag is the prime emblem of that nation’s sovereignty, history and culture, and that nothing else comes near to it in its national iconography.
This is what Marcus Lashley, in his column titled National Flag Or A Rag in the Sunday Sun on August 26, 2012, had to say about our National Flag: “ONE of the most easily recognizable and identifiable symbols of nationhood and by extension sovereignty is the National Flag of Barbados.”
Again, I need to inform readers of what Ms Clarke, in typical fashion, refuses to tell them: that I was wearing my Mizuno warm-up uniform on the podium, and that Mizuno was the official sponsor of the 2000 Barbados Olympic team.
She also refuses to tell them that it was I who had been the major agent in securing Mizuno sponsorship in 1999 for the Barbados World Championships athletics team, and for Barbadian competitors in all sports at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games.
Positive relationship
Further still, she needs to make them aware of the fact that Mizuno has continued to sponsor Barbadian teams to all athletic World Championships and Olympic Games up to the 2012 one in London, in no small measure because of my continued positive relationship with the company even after my sponsorship contract with them ended in 2005. Therefore, the uniform that I was supposed to wear at the ceremony was sponsored by Mizuno, my own sponsor, and at my initiative.
In my opinion, it was one of the most attractive uniforms that Barbadians have worn to any sporting event, and was much more attractive than the plain dark-blue warm-up suit that I ended up wearing on the podium.
In light of what I have said above, does it make sense that I would be so unthinking as to deliberately boycott wearing that uniform on the podium for the most significant medal presentation of my career?
For the record, I need to point out that I have worn the official Barbados uniform at every other medal ceremony in which I have participated on behalf of my country.
Furthermore, Ms Clarke’s view that I should have been censured once again reveals a mindset that majors in minors. Which forward-thinking administrators would have punished their country’s first Olympic medallist under similar circumstances?
Ms Clarke is completely off-track at the idea that I should have been disciplined, because the fact is that I was not in violation of any IOC regulations, since (as I stated above) Mizuno was the team’s official sponsor.
Contrary to Ms Clarke’s suggestion, it would not have been feasible for me to somehow receive a uniform while I was taking my victory lap with the other medal winners. I am still curious to know where I was to store that uniform.
Also, Ms Clarke’s idea that somehow the Olympic officials would have delayed a medal ceremony for someone from a small country, who had won neither the gold nor the silver medal, but rather the bronze, is extremely simplistic and hardly needs further comment.
Nevertheless, I will say that major international sporting events tend to run like clockwork and I have never seen such accommodation for any sports personality at a major championship, unless that individual was competing in another event at the time of the scheduled medal ceremony.
Once again, Ms Clarke is completely off-track in talking about matters about which she seems to know little or nothing.
My contribution to my country
Ms Clarke ends her article with what she views as my contribution, or lack thereof, to my country. She writes: “To whom much is given much is expected and I believed [sic] Oba got more from this country than he has given back.”
This is a most fascinating comment. One may ask: “How many Barbadians have given as much to the country as they have received?” More directly, I wish to ask Ms Clarke to tell Barbados and the world how much she has given back to the country in terms of what she has received from it.
I understand that she was once on an athletic scholarship at Eastern Michigan University. Please ask her to tell Barbadians at what championships she represented the country and what medals she won. Let her tell us in which Hall of Fame, either local or internationally, her name has been written in the athletic sphere or any sphere.
Where is her name recorded in the annals of Barbadian sports on the walls or anywhere else in the Barbados Olympic Association’s museum?
Of course, I am asking for all this information but not expecting anything substantial to emerge from my quest. Indeed, I don’t even expect her to reply to this query; but she may surprise me.
Her situation brings to life the maxim that those who live in glass houses should not throw stones.
I will not endeavour to measure my contribution to my country in relation to what I have received from it, and I would most certainly not try to compare anything that I have done with the fact that I was born, bred, educated and socialized in Barbados, and that I believe that I am loved by a large number of Barbadians.
Better known
I will only say that I have tried to make my country proud of me and become better known to the international community through my athletic performances.
Perhaps my most significant achievement, which I believe has redounded to the benefit of my country, is that I am one of two persons (the other being Mr James Wedderburn) who have helped to place it among the 27 794 persons who have received Olympic medals in the entire history of the modern summer Olympics, from 1896 to 2012 (see official Olympic Internet site at http://www.olympic.org/athletes).
When we consider the billions of persons who have lived and died on planet earth during that time, and that the present population is estimated at over seven billion, I believe that our achievement is no mean one.
Secondly, until the recent London Olympics, Barbados was the smallest country demographically to have won an individual medal in track and field at the Olympic Games since the modern inception of that event in 1896. That honour now belongs to Grenada, as a result of the exploits of Kirani James in the 400 metres.
Thirdly, as far as I am aware, I am one of only five male athletes who have run in three consecutive Olympic finals in at least one of the two short sprints, the 100 metres and 200 metres. The others are Raymond Stewart, Asafa Powell, Kim Collins and Linford Christie. This is a significant achievement, especially when we note the attrition rate of sprinters.
Recognition
Mr Jerston Clarke, veteran and highly respected Barbadian coach, was so impressed by my achievement in 2004 that he called for the National Stadium to be renamed in my honour. He had never coached me, so no one can say that he was attempting to “blow his own trumpet” as a coach.
After I ran in the 100 metres finals at the Sydney Olympics in 2000, I heard on the news that it was the most watched live event on television, with an estimated audience of 19 million worldwide.
I cannot vouch for this number but even if it was substantially smaller, it must have given a great boost to the recognition of Barbados as a country.
No doubt, quite a number of persons, in Africa and Asia especially, were hearing of the existence of Barbados for the first time. (I know that before I went to El Paso a large number of persons there had not heard the name Barbados before, much less where it lay on the world map.) The prestige and tourist value of my participation in the finals should not be underestimated.
I also reached the finals in that event in 2004, and in the 200 metres in 1996 and again in 2000.
In the latter year, the IAAF ranked me at No.3 in the world in the 100 metres, and No.2 in the 200 metres. For a short while in 2001 that organization actually ranked me No. 1 in the 200 metres.
I cannot compute what all these achievements mean in terms of “giving back” to my country. I shall leave that to objective readers to decide.
As noted earlier in the series, I also achieved three world records/world best times during my career: world junior record in the 100 metres; fastest 100 metres under any conditions; and world record in the 55 metres. The last of these still stands today.
Again, I believe that this helped to put my country on the world list of countries who have achieved something outstanding in that area of sports.
It is most unfortunate that I have to go into some detail below to indicate that I have actually given back something to sports in the country both mentally and materially, although I have never before broadcast this fact.
Between 1996 and 2006 I gave talks in some 28 local primary, secondary and tertiary institutions. Among these were Bay Primary, Charles F. Broome, Good Shepherd, Wesley Hall Junior, Challenor School, Queen’s College, Harrison College, Christ Church Boys’, St Lucy Secondary, and the University of the West Indies.
Motivational
I also talked to members of the Taekwondo Association, Track and Field Academy, Barbados national netball team, and Sagicor Youth Milan football team. I also gave motivational speeches to the 2006 Barbados Commonwealth Games team; and during my most recent visit home to Barbados in June 2012 I also spoke to the CAC junior team.
I have also given short talks to athletes at the Ursuline Convent’s sports day, Barbados Community College sports day, and Special Olympics track and field meet.
I was a judge at the Alleyne School’s Beauty Pageant, and also presented an award to Rihanna at the inaugural Barbados Music Awards in 2006.
I gave inspirational talks to the members of the West Indies cricket team in Antigua (in 2005), paying for my own airline ticket. I also talked to them (in 2006) at the 3Ws Oval (Cave Hill Campus), while they were preparing for an overseas tour. On invitation, I returned to Barbados to be present at the official launch of Cricket World Cup 2007.
I have also spoken to a large number of athletes and other people in various sporting disciplines. I have likewise assisted a few of them with sporting gear and money to meet special sporting needs, including a few of them with airfares to compete at meets in Jamaica and Britain.
On several occasions I have allowed my personal physiotherapist to attend to the needs of athletes at my expense. I have also given track gear to several athletes.
Moreover, I have personally, but privately, reached out via telephone calls, emails, Internet chat messages and text messages to several of our top local male sprinters, their parents, and sometimes even their coaches over the past ten years. These athletes include Everton Evelyn, Andrew Hinds, Wilan Louis, Dario Alleyne, Shekeim Greaves, and Ryan Brathwaite (before he became the World champion).
I felt it important to share my experiences and knowledge with them so that they could further their careers and represent Barbados to the best of their abilities.
As I mentioned before, my world-rated performances allowed me to secure sponsorship from Mizuno in 1997. Two years later, largely because of my initiative and outstanding relationship with the company, Mizuno agreed to sponsor the Barbados athletic team for the first time at the 1999 World Indoor Championships.
Sponsorship
Since then, many Barbadian sportspeople, particularly in athletics, have benefited from Mizuno’s continued sponsorship of various national teams, at both the junior and senior levels, to championships such as the Olympic Games, World Championships and World Junior Championships.
This is a significant upgrade in equipment from the inadequate gear that my teammates and I were accustomed to using during my junior and early senior years as a national representative.
I have done, free of cost, a number of advertisements targeted at youths. These include the AAA programme titled Developing The Sport and the United Nations Development Programme’s Drug Awareness Campaign. Some may recall seeing my picture associated with this programme at the airport.
In 2000 I set up the Obadele Thompson Sports Foundation in order to assist a much larger number of athletes.
Unfortunately, that initiative fell on stony ground primarily for reasons which I am not prepared to disclose at this time, and which I may never disclose, but a few Barbadians are aware of what actually happened. My own earning capacity fell dramatically after 2000, as I have disclosed in an earlier instalment of this series, and that worsened the situation.
It is with great reluctance and more than a touch of sadness that I now revisit a situation about which I spoke and which was published in your newspaper on March 5 and 6, 2006.
It deals with my failure to engage the Government at the time in any dialogue concerning exactly what I was expected to do as Special Envoy for Youth in the country.
In response to my statements, the Honourable Reginald Farley, Minister of Sports at the time, responded that his Government had not employed my services because I was mostly out of the country, either in the United States or on the European competition circuit. Actually, I was hardly on the circuit in that year or the previous one.
Be that as it may, on March 7, 2006, your newspaper carried my response that said, “Thompson, the island’s lone Olympic individual medallist, promised Farley that he would break from competing or training overseas, and return to Barbados any time he was needed to assist in starting a developmental programme for sports leading to the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, China.” Still, I was never contacted about assisting in any way.
More than three years later, I wrote an email to new Prime Minister David Thompson, on September 21, 2009, in which I stated in part: “Mr Prime Minister, I would like to be involved in developing sport in Barbados. I think that Ryan Brathwaite’s recent global title affirms my long-held belief that we have great potential in Barbados . . . .
“Now that I am retired from sport, I want to use my knowledge and experiences to help us produce more winners like Ryan and myself.
“What better way to market Barbados, and unite and raise the psyche of our people (as clearly seen in the tremendous public support and pride after my triumph in 2000 and, most recently, Ryan’s World Championship victory)?”
The Prime Minister responded very positively to that correspondence and as a result we met during one of his trips to the United States.
That was the first bright spark from Government. Unfortunately, he became seriously ill before we could work out the actual details of ways in which I could assist my country, and sadly passed away in October 2010.
Now, I am into a new phase of my life. I have just re-entered university to do further studies. Nevertheless, it can be seen from the above that I made several and varied attempts to promote local sports and to give back not just a little, but a lot, to my country. I shall stand by the judgement of my readers on these matters.
• Obadele Thompson is Barbados’ first individual Olympic medallist, winning a bronze medal in the men’s 100 metres at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
