Increasing number of athletes in need of help
All of St Vincent and the Grenadines were attuned to the semi-finals and finals of the women’s 800m at this year’s Paris Olympics, because there was Vincentian athlete, Shafiqua Maloney, in the line-up, seeking the nation’s first medal at the quadrennial sporting spectacle. She finished a commendable fourth.
For some brief moments on the days of the semi-final and final, we were a united nation; animosities were cast aside and all rooted for the nation’s leading track and field athlete. For once, the national colours were the only ones considered important and the cause was common to every Vincentian regardless of class, status, ethnicity or colour.
Many a Vincentian paid little attention to Shafiqua’s history in the sport of track and field athletics. She was, like so many others before her, hardly the recipient of the kind of support that athletes need, if they are to become successful athletes, even when, as a junior, she displayed the talent associated with elite potential.
Here in St Vincent and the Grenadines, while we often erroneously pride ourselves avid sport fans, for the most part, we are prone to withholding our support until our annoying prejudices for a particular athlete or a particular sport forces us to lend public recognition and some acclaim.
St Vincent and the Grenadines does not possess a sports culture. This is the reason that numerous of our athletes not only go without recognition but also why they get little or no support unless they deliver some remarkable achievement. Like the proverbial, ‘Ms Janie fire’, we only allow any sense of euphoria over an athlete’s achievement to last a mere few days before we forget all about it.
Brief historical notes
St Vincent and the Grenadines first participated in the Commonwealth Games (then called the British Empire Games), in Cardiff, Wales, in 1958. The athletes were Elton Anderson (100yds, 220yds) and Godfrey Roberts (Long Jump, High Jump, Triple Jump). There is no legacy.
In 1958, home-grown, Maurice King, earned a place on the West Indies team to the Pan American Games in Chicago, where he won a bronze medal. It is alleged that he once had an unofficial world record in his weightlifting category.
George Manners, a Vincentian weightlifter, who represented England and won silver medals at the Commonwealth Games of 1962 and 1966, before representing his home country at the Games of 1970 where he won bronze, was this country’s first athlete to compete at the Olympic Games. This was in 1964, in Tokyo, Japan. He died in 2021, still living in the UK.
Frankie Lucas, a Vincentian middleweight boxer living in England, at the age of 18 defeated one of the country’s ‘chosen one’ Alan Minter but was forced to stay at home while the latter went to the Olympics as the UK’s representative. When a St Vincent and the Grenadines Boxing Association was established to get him to the Commonwealth Games in Auckland, New Zealand in 1974, he went on to win gold, this country’s first gold medal at that international level. He died in poverty. His legacy is however chronicled in a remarkable play on his life in London while here at home, there is hardly mention of his name. There is no legacy.
Some years ago I wrote, “In August 1994, Eswort Coombs made it to the finals of the 400m at the Commonwealth Games in Victoria, British Colombia, Canada, becoming the first track and field athlete to achieve such a feat.
In March 1995, Coombs earned bronze in the 400m at the Pan American Games in Mar del Plata, Argentina (our first athletics medal at the Pan American Games) and in August of the same year won the same event at the World University Games in Fukuoka, Japan.
In 1996, Coombs made it to the semi-final stage of the 400m at the Atlanta Olympics, the best performance by a Vincentian at these Games to date.
In 2002, Natasha Mayers made it to the finals of the 100m and placed fourth in the 200m at the Commonwealth Games in Manchester, England. Eight years later, she won the 100m after originally placing third and favoured by two disqualifications.”
Kineke Alexander earned bronze at the CAC Games in Cartagena, Colombia, in 2006 and a medal of the same colour at the Pan American Games in Toronto, Canada, in 2015.
Handal Roban won gold in the 800m at the CAC Games in San Salvador, El Salvador, 2023 with Shafiqua Maloney, in the 800m for women, copping her first medal, bronze, at an international multisport Games, the same competition.
Financing
The evidence of this country’s participation at multisport Games reveals several outstanding Vincentian athletes, most of them from the sport of track and field athletics. The evidence also reveals that none of them benefitted from any major assistance package consistent with their proficiency, from St Vincent and the Grenadines.
Mention should be made of outstanding athletes in other sports practised in St Vincent and the Grenadines.
There have been footballers dating back several decades who should be chronicled in the archives of this nation’s sporting history, but barely mentioned and hence, not known by the majority of today’s Vincentian footballers, let alone the sport-loving public. They too suffered from a lack of financial support. None received football contracts abroad until a few years ago, and even so, at a relatively low level.
Our cricketers were perhaps much more fortunate since playing County Cricket in England came with some useful financial rewards. The likes of the earlier players who made the West Indies team hardly benefitted from financial assistance. Some received land and some cash. Today, with the introduction of the IPL and CPL and VPL, the financial pie spreads to a larger number of cricketers. This is the same for those who gain selection to the regional team.
Our netballers, however good many of them were, never received individual support enough to compare with those that swelled the ranks of the professional teams spread across the likes of Australia, the UK and New Zealand.
The reality in this country has been that individual players were essentially left to scrounge around for themselves, almost like beggars, trying to access the support needed to keep themselves at an appropriate fitness level and improve their skill competencies.
For decades, the Ballantyne’s home gym, was a sort of physical training haven for countless Vincentian athletes, especially since the family had an open door policy that required no financial contributions. Fred and Gloria Ballantyne knew that the majority of athletes were unable to pay for much of their required training and competition gear, much less to have cash to pay for use of their gym.
Many of our athletes were unable to have appropriate nutrition as required by sport health professionals. They ate what they could, and many did not have access to regular meals on a daily basis.
There was no financing of sport in St Vincent and the Grenadines in a manner consistent with the requirements of any of the sports practised in the nation.
Shafiqua Maloney is unique in Vincentian sporting history, being the first athlete in any sport to be the beneficiary of the finances she received in her preparation for the Paris2024 Olympics.
Shafiqua is not, however, the first Vincentian athlete to be in need. For many years, Kineke Alexander, NCAA winner in the 400m, reached out for assistance and never received any. She reached the head of government and was sent to the Minister of Sport on several occasions, until frustration led her to commit never to ask for such assistance again; a stance she maintained through to the end of her career. This occurred even though one of the government ministers was a relative.
In the case of Shafiqua Maloney, while under a scholarship programme at Arkansas, USA, she represented St Vincent and the Grenadines at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. Once she had completed university and the scholarship ended, she was financially strapped. She began to seek out financial assistance. Countless WhatsApp messages, emails and phone calls either went unacknowledged, unanswered or resulted in her being re-directed. Some may recall that in 2023, the News newspaper carried an almost half-page set of details on Shafiqua’s plight at the time. She acknowledged that while in receipt of some support from Team Athletics and the National Olympic Committee, both indicated that their resources and commitments could not allow them individually and combined to meet her required funding and at the same time honour their respective annual sporting calendars.
The News newspaper article did not yield much by way of concern and commitments around the country even though Paris2024 was looming on the horizon. The Vincentian Diaspora grouping in New York began a ‘Go Fund Me’ initiative to assist Shafiqua. TASVG and the NOC continued to make contributions for specific events, from time to time. She was still woefully short of h er financial requirements.
It was not until Shafiqua was on Sports Max where she spoke of her longstanding lack of funding and the video went viral that suddenly, there was a sort of ‘awakening’ at the level of both the government and some segments of the commercial sector, that Shafiqua’s plight became the centre of attention and financial commitments came forward.
The reality is that for Shafiqua alone, as an elite athlete, her annual financial needs stand at around $60,000USD per year.
Handal Roban, who contested the 800m at the Paris Olympics, will complete his university scholarship studies in two years. His financial needs have already been relatively modest thus far but required, nonetheless. His potential suggests that he will have major financial demands going forward.
Earl Simmons, of Union Island, is at the GC Foster College for Physical Education and Sport in Jamaica. He ran 10.13 during the course of this year and will certainly be in the hunt for World Championships in Tokyo, Japan, next year, as well as other major athletics competitions. His financial demands must be added to those already mentioned.
There are several other Vincentian track and field athletes who are at universities abroad and who are expected to significantly improve their performances and world rankings in 2025 and beyond. These include Mikeisha Welcome, Uroy Ryan, both triple jumpers, McKish Compton, Amar Glasgow, J’aivar Cato and Devonric Mack, to name a few.
The fact is that track and field athletics remains the nation’s most successful sport, and the financial demands of its athletes continue to grow exponentially.
There is an urgent need for the establishment of a special fund to facilitate the growing financial needs of our leading athletes in the different sports. This fund should allow for clearly defined criteria for access to funding over specific time-periods.
There is much for all of us to learn from the experiences of Kineke and Shafiqua in particular and these must inform how we move forward so as to prevent any repetition of what the encountered. We must plan ahead and there must be a coming together of the public and private sectors with national sports associations to forge a new template that would serve the immediate, medium and long term needs of our athletes as they go through their respective development pathways, taking with them the treasured flag of St Vincent and the Grenadines.
