The performances or moreso lack of, at the Central American and Caribbean (CAC) Games in Mexico, are a painful reminder that sport in Barbados is bordering on crisis stage.
It is a letdown and embarrassment to be represented in 19 disciplines and collect just four medaIs.
In scholastic terms, the Commonwealth Games, Pan Am Games, World Championships and the Olympics are on a university tier. The CAC Games, the bottom of the major league, is an Ordinary Level exam and Mexico was proof that we are now struggling to get O’ Levels.
At the last CAC Games in Puerto Rico in 2010, we took away just ten medals, three of them gold. We fared worse this time. It is at the CAC where hockey, swimming, boxing, badminton, cycling, table tennis, should make the mark and step up.
In the August 13 edition of MIDWEEK SPORT, I said that gold medals in Mexico will be as rare as footprints on the moon. I was right. In Mexico, we collected a silver from sprinter Levi Cadogan, and three bronze medals by way of hurdlers Kierre Beckles and Greggmar Swift and the mixed doubles squash pair of Gavin Cumberbatch and Karen Meakins.
It is just not good enough.
Please read the full story in today’s Midweek Nation, or in the eNATION edition.