Sports for all

Prime Minister Patrick Manning on Saturday used the occasion of the “Well Done” rally for the Warriors to announce a two-pronged plan for developing sport in this country. He intends that the Government will firstly promote sports-for-all including making sport compulsory for secondary school pupils at Forms One to Three, and secondly bolster our top sportsmen/women athletes.

Who can argue with these ideals? Surely all would agree that the country should invest so that the Warriors’ success can be reproduced and exceeded by future generations and in areas additional to football. And surely all would agree that a sports-for-all programme will have huge benefits for the population. Sport is fun. Team games such as football, cricket and hockey can create friendships that last a lifetime. Moreso sport contributes to healthy lifestyles and can constructively consume youthful energies which might otherwise find harmful outlets, or no outlet at all. Recent news stories from the USA have underlined the huge proportion of children who suffer from obesity brought about largely through “couch potato” lifestyles watching the television.

Every few months a new discovery is made of the benefit of exercise. It boosts your physical health, alleviating the risk of heart disease and diabetes, even delaying the signs of aging. Moreso, the human brain is a physical organ that needs a healthy supply of oxygenated blood, and can benefit from exercise which combats dementia and relieves stress, anxiety and depression.

So we would support a sports-for-all policy, although rather than Manning declaring school sport is to be “compulsory”, we would have preferred it to be called “universal”, “equal access” or “equal opportunity”.

Bearing in mind the diversity of our children who may not all have the physiques and mindsets for the rough-and-tumble of a game like football, we suggest the Government offers a diversity of sport such as badminton and tai chi to name a few.

Prime Minister Manning on Saturday said he would boost top-level sportsmen using the country’s stadia, including the proposed Tarouba Sports Complex which will be used for cricket including World Cup 2007. We have no problem with that in theory, but we have concerns about its execution. Like other observers, we are concerned about the complex’s $850 million price tag, and the accountability of its builders, Udecott, which came under fire recently from a parliamentary Joint Select Committee (JSC).

Manning said Ato Boldon Stadium will be the home of the Trinidad and Tobago Football Team, while the Mannie Ramjohn Stadium will be used to develop track and field sports. Again, we welcome the utilisation of these two facilities which have so far remained under-used. However we note that the two stadia were built specifically for football and that now the Mannie Ramjohn Stadium will require the installation of track and field facilities like sandpits and warm-up tracks. Again, we hope costs can be kept down.

So in general we welcome the development of sport across the country and for all levels of ability, and we trust that at not too great a cost, these stadia can be used to continue to bring out the best in our people.