Dear Sir,

I am an avid reader of the sports section of your newspaper and look forward with particular interest to the weekly opinion column which is published on Fridays.

Mr. Editor, I encourage you to probe, question and offer constructive comment. This is very important to the development of sound, and good sports administration and decision making, which is the ultimate objective of all our endeavours.

On Friday December 12, your column included an opinion on the CARIFTA Games preparation, which, for the most part, was objective and reasoned but fell short of a full, balanced presentation of the topic of national team selection, coaching, training and preparations.

The purpose of coaching is to assist ?the athlete?s long term development?.

The first years of a child?s exposure to sport is aimed/or should be focused on fun, participation and experimentation with new forms of sports activities.

At pre-teen levels, it is concerned with the general development of athletic abilities, and some form of sport specific conditioning.

At early to mid-teen levels, the focus shifts to the development of physical, tactical, technical and mental abilities and skills in order to perform at national level competitions.

Finally, at mid-teen to late teen levels, the focus again changes to high performance tactics, including maintaining physical abilities at a high level, and the improvement of technical, tactical and mental skills in order to reach peak performance in national and international level competition.

Research has shown that it takes approximately ten years or 10,000 hours of training to produce a high performance athlete.

The passage of athletes through the above levels of training and development requires co-operation and collaboration between coaches of each level to pass on key information to offer the best opportunity for the athlete to reach his/her potential. Somewhere between the last two exchanges, the system becomes frayed, not only here in Bermuda, but also internationally. Ego?s become involved and pride intervenes much to the detriment of the innocent athlete who is tossed between these competing interests.

It is a fact, however, that when there is a smooth transition of these stages, the athlete benefits and reaches levels of performance sometimes surpassing expectations that results in achievements that brings pride to the athlete and the community. Examples include Paula Lewin, Peter Bromby, Nicky Saunders, Shaun Goater, Clyde Best and Debbie Jones.

It is from this context that I take issue with the comments in your December 12 .

National team preparation in any sport requires time and preparation not only for individual improvement, but building team spirit and camaraderie. It requires more than one month as suggested in your article.

Track and Field is not cricket, football, swimming, gymnastics etc. Individual abilities are fine-tuned for the requirement expected at major international games, while team spirit is built to provide a support structure for each member of the contingent to give their level best. This has been enshrined in sport since the beginning of time and those countries that best achieve these two objectives do achieve the best results (for example Australia, Germany, America and others).

It would be unfair to expect club level coaches to have all the technical and practical skills to take high-performance athletes to these levels, unless they have had the training, exposure and consistent immersion at an international levels. It takes time, application, study and practical application skills, that are acquired over years of study and practice. Hence, National Coaches are required to have a much more advanced level of ability and skill sets to achieve these objectives and therefore we hold them to higher levels of accountability.

We do our athletes a disservice by exposing them to unflattering opinions we have of any coach, which not only may be unfounded, but may unfavourably influence the athletes acceptance of different tactical training approaches designed to take he/she to the next level. A poisoned mind is not ordinarily receptive to a new experience.

I agree with you Mr.Editor that ?the only thing that matters is whether Bermuda fields its strongest team when the games roll around next April.? However, I disagree with you as to how we approach this end.

We need to be giving our athletes every encouragement to enter the national programme, to support their efforts to hone and fine tune their skills to their maximum potential, so that they in turn, can give their best performance at these games. Our bickering about who is coaching and the time required to prepare, confuses, distracts and hinders the preparations required to achieve the principle objective of sport, which is and should be athlete centred.

The results of April 2004 will be a barometer of how we as a country performed and stood behind our athletes to give them the support and boost they need to prepare to give their best capable performance.

Let us move forward supporting our athletes, our national coaches, our administrators, our officials, our volunteers etc, to ensure that the CARIFTA Games 2004 hosted by Bermuda are the best ever, and our athletes are properly preparing to give their very best performance.