C’bean athletes taxed for Hampton Games

Chairman of the Hampton Games Committee Rawle Raphael made this announcement in an interview yesterday and said the move was necessary to assist financing after the games experienced huge financial constraints.

The 31st edition of the games will be held at the Hasely Crawford Stadium starting tomorrow. Raphael revealed that regional athletes were charged US$1 (TT$6.30) while officials were made to pay US$5 (TT$31.50), as opposed to no charges in previous years.

But he was quick to thank regional neighbours, however, who in spite of everything have given tremendous support to the event which is considered to be the region’s oldest and biggest athletic competition.

Raphael made it clear, the region will be providing the games with approximately 295 athletes and a large contingent of officials, while Trinidad and Tobago will be producing over 1,000 athletes for the games.

He lamented there will be no high profile international athletes at the games as promised with the Hampton committee continuing its attempt at securing $1.1M from government and corporate Trinidad and Tobago, to offset costs.

Raphael said his committee is currently facing a $50,000 debt to off-set the cost of boarding and internal transportation for athletes. A release from the Ministry of Sports yesterday, stated that $50,000 was given to Hampton Athletics Club on the endorsement of the National Amateur Athletic Association for the staging of this year’s games.

The Hampton committee initially sent letters of invitation to world 100 metres champion, American Justin Gatlin, to be among a small but effective international list of athletes, aimed at bringing out the crowd for the games.

Others invited were top US woman sprinter Marion Jones, Kittitian Commonwealth Games 100 metres champ Kim Collins and Namibian Frankie Fredericks.

Raphael said such plans had to be shelved since "government and corporate TT did not live up to expectations".

He feels with such a big event on the local calendar scheduled to take place, government and corporate Trinidad and Tobago should have a mandate to deliver support.

He noted that it can only serve to enhance the sport and by extension reduce the crime and delinquency rate in the country.

Raphael also expressed the view that his committee was unable to secure the services of world junior sprint champion Darrel Brown, who has pulled out because the stadium track is not certified.

The Hampton boss lashed out at Brown saying he should have made himself available for the games, at which he is accustomed competing because it was his homeland games.

He pointed out that Brown, Candice Scott, Cleopatra Borrel and Marc Burns who are among the list of high-profile local athletes that each receive some $250,000 from government for their personal development, should be made available for all top local events, by the government.

He claimed further that attempts were made for quadruple Olympic medallist Ato Boldon to be part of the games, but unfortunately he had other engagements.

Raphael said financial difficulty faced by the Hampton Games committee includes a US$10,000 (TT$63,000) debt to Boldon for previous commitments.

He pointed out to date, his committee only received little more than TT$15,000 from the business sector and TT$50,000 in advertisements from TIDCO, the Tourism Industrial Company Limited and TV6.

He spelled out TIDCO’s $20,000 input in the games, while TV6 have added $30,000.