It is over for Oba! Barbados’ sole Olympic medallist Obadele Thompson was ousted as a Barbados Olympic Association (BOA) board director after Wednesday’s Annual General Meeting at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre.
Having served on the board since 2023, the bronze medallist at the 2000 Sydney Olympics received 19 votes and was bested by newcomers Ryan Brathwaite, who totalled 28 votes and former national hockey player Dominic Hill, who tallied 22 votes.
Brathwaite’s journey to the board began in 2010 when he interned at the association after receiving his associate’s degree in Sports Management at the Barbados Community College.
Reflecting on his election, the 34-year-old was ecstatic to be allowed to serve at a higher level.
“I’m humbled. I feel grateful for the opportunity to serve, and I’m thankful to all the national federations for the confidence that they have placed in me to serve sport,” Brathwaite told Weekend Sport.
The Paralympic Association president, who is currently pursuing his doctorate in sports administration at the University of the West Indies (UWI) Mona Campus added, “I also want to see how we can continue to strengthen the voice of inclusion with respect to bringing more persons with disabilities into sport. I’m looking forward to continuing to do that, as well as to make sure we can give national federations the support and keep them meaningfully engaged so that we can take sport forward in Barbados to the next level.”
Improve athletes
Similarly, Hill was humbled to be selected on the board.
“This felt like a natural progression for me, but I am privileged and honoured to be elected and chosen to serve for the next three years. I hope that for however long they want me around, we can progress the association and that it can improve the athletes as well as the national federations.”
The 51-year-old, who represented Barbados at the junior and senior level and is also a former national men’s hockey coach continued, “I’m huge on youth development, and between ages 16 and 18, we lose quite a bit of athletes for several reasons. Whether it’s academics or a loss of focus, I think it’s extremely important to work within those national federations to see how we can keep those athletes. We’re very good at building the basics for young kids, because we’re naturally gifted athletes, but then we tend to not be able to push them onto the next stage.”
BOA vice-president Cameron Burke, who continued in his post after running unopposed in the AGM, was confident both incoming directors would bring new ideas to the fold.
“I believe that both men have what it takes to freshen up the whole BOA landscape. As an association, we have to look at succession planning, and I look for people who show that willingness to carry the BOA forward, enhance the sporting landscape (in Barbados) and bring fresh ideas to the table,” he said.
“Age is wisdom, but our job as the experienced members is to groom the next generation of leaders. While we understand the basics, the sporting landscape is changing, and we have to change with it by bringing on board younger people who will take over from us. Both things work hand in hand.”
Despite believing that the meeting ran smoothly, the 70-year-old Burke revealed that there was pushback on the approval of the amendments to the by-laws, which were being updated to align with global best practices.
One matter was the introduction of an age limit of 75 years.
Little tweaks
“Members felt that the age limit might have been discriminatory. In relation to that, persons joining or seeking re-election to the board whenever this new provision comes into effect will serve up until the age of 75. Current members like myself would serve until 80. Some people felt the disparity between 75 and 80 was too great and maybe we should bring it down to 77. Those were some of the little tweaks that the membership is asking us to make. We will look at it as a board, come back to the current membership, share the views, and try to smooth it out as soon as possible,” Burke said.
Another matter on the cards for further discussion was the movement to give the Athletes’ Commission two votes rather than one, while all the other clubs would get one vote.
“The International Olympic Committee (IOC) was recommending that the Athletes’ Commission should have two votes at a general meeting, along with the other responsibilities that they have. While they (IOC) understood and appreciated that everything is athlete-centred, they still wanted to have a little more say in what more we can give to the athletes and how we can bring more focus on the athletes,” Burke explained. (JC)