By Neto Baptiste
The highly debated “white paper” prepared by the Ministry of Sports mapping the way forward as Antigua and Barbuda strives towards medalling at the Olympic Games, heavily focuses on the early development of athletes and facilities.
This is according to Minister of Sports Daryll Matthew who said the document focuses on ensuring that adequate facilities, coaching and resources are in place, particularly at the youth level.
“We can’t develop an elite athlete at 16 years old because by that time, in many sports, it’s just simply too late so you need to have them in proper programmes at seven, eight, nine and 10 years old so that they can develop the proper mechanics. They can develop the proper habits, you can do proper identification of which students have a particular aptitude with sports and these are some of the areas that are covered in this paper,” he said.
“We need to recognize that if you want elite athletes you must have top notch facilities in most cases but as a small-island developing state, I keep telling persons that the same cheque book that writes the cheques to build a sporting facility it’s the same cheque book you go to in order to write a cheque for wages and salaries, to build a new classroom or to buy a new MRI machine,” he added.
Underscoring that government must prioritize spending, Matthew assured that sports, in no way, is being shortchanged and that work is set to commence at the YASCO Sports Complex within the first quarter of 2025, as they move to put additional amenities in place at the country’s lone track and field facility.
“Having a track alone does not create an athletics facility so the long conversation we’ve been having in Antigua and Barbuda for many years as it pertains to changing room facilities, perhaps a small gymnasium facility and so these are things that are well-known and well-documented. In fact, I can say to you that earlier this year, maybe a few months ago, I received the budget for what it would cost to build out these facilities and it’s about 1.6 million and as recently as yesterday [November 13] at the Cabinet level, the Minister of Works and Housing [Hon Maria Browne] and I, had a conversation about it and we’ve received a sort of commitment that sometime within the first quarter of next year that work will commence to have those facilities put in place,” the minister said.
Asked if the “white paper” would be made public, Matthew who was speaking on the Good Morning Jojo sports show at the time, said that although it could be used as reference for future discussions, it is not something he would prefer to publicize.
“I don’t know that it should be a public document. It’s a document that we can make reference to that we can have discussions around and maybe even have consultation amongst stakeholders but this thing about let’s do a document and send it out into the public, I have my feelings about that and not that it’s a secret either but I guess we could have those discussions. I certainly think though that coming out of it, there should be some national dialog with different associations who may be immediately impacted to see how we can perhaps go further to support them,” he said.
The minister was commissioned by Cabinet, in August, to produce the document outlining the steps needed to put Antigua and Barbuda on the medal podium at the next Olympic Games in 2028. The request came following the success of St Lucian sprinter Julian Alfred who won gold in the 100 meters and Dominica’s Thea Lafond who won gold in the women’s triple jump.
