Olympic Successes, so invest in our people

THE GOOD,THE bad and already, the others are already among us, commenting as never before on an Olympic 800-meter finals. When last …? Don’t let the overwhelming positivity of what has been achieved in the past three days in Paris blind our eyes either to our accomplishments or our possibilities.

Shafiqua Maloney has done in one weekend much more than what we were hoping to “gallery” for, a medal, and what it means to all Vincentians.

She had to face, not just her own circumstances, but without considering the differing situations, nationalist expectations that, not only a medal would do, but almost that it was up to Shafiqua to do it for us. Much as we applauded the achievements of her neighbouring colleagues, we, and by expectation, Shaffiqua, were placed into the situation of the “poor relatives” of the Olympics. We were pressured to do more to justify our existence.

Worse- and we do not understand this, our successes in cricket, and as a result the media attention; and our “Galacticos” as they call them in football, meant that our track and field athletes were always going to have a more than uphill battle to gain even similar visibility.

In this context therefore, the performance of Shafiqua deserves every bit as much a support to her, and our country, as that being accorded to others in their moments of glory. In fact, not to underestimate the accomplishments of LaFond and Alfred, Shafiqua was placed in a most difficult situation, having to “medal or otherwise”.

That she was able to withstand the pressures, even with the unspoken reservation of many of her fellow citizens, has made her achievement even more remarkable. She may not have succeeded in the circumstances in giving us a place on the podium, but she has certainly marked a place for us “in the sun”.

In so doing, we must commend the support of our corporate community and welcome initiatives of our political leaders not only to provide support to our athletes, but to reward them as well.We must all give support to the various initiatives in this regard and let not just our government, but all our people know how much we owe to these athletes. Above all, we must let them know that it is not just what this government or that one has contributed towards the individual successes, but what it means to our respective countries.

Whilst powerhouse Jamaica has, up to press time, not recorded a gold medal, both Dominica and Saint Lucia have had gold medal successes.Yet political leaders in these countries, and in Grenada as well, a bronze medallist- seem to have set their sights on a different role for investment, not in their own people, but in “Citizens by Investment” programmes.The 2024 Olympics should now convince us that it pays more to invest in our own citizens. Don’t you think that the exploits of Julien Alfred, Thea LaFond and our own Shafiqua will bring more benefits in the long run to our people?

If there is one lesson, it is, “INVEST IN OUR CITIZENS”.