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Hoskins takes charge of BOA

elected president of Bermuda Olympic Association (BOA), succeeding Austin Woods.Woods had long ago announced that he would not seek another term after spending 12 years in the top post, leaving Hoskins,

elected president of Bermuda Olympic Association (BOA), succeeding Austin Woods.

Woods had long ago announced that he would not seek another term after spending 12 years in the top post, leaving Hoskins, who had served some 20 years as Secretary General, the logical choice to assume the presidency.

And, considering the fact that the pair had worked hand-in-hand for so many years, Hoskins said he expected a smooth transition.

"I don't see much changing,'' said Hoskins, who has attended all Olympic, Pan-Am and Commonwealth Games in recent memory, including the recent Sydney Games.

"I've worked with Austin for many years now and we've been pretty much on the same plane all the way through, so I don't see many changes.'' However, there are sure to be some changes, with the BOA constitution leading the agenda.

"We don't have any major Games at the moment, but we have to change our constitution,'' said Hoskins. "The IOC has asked us to change our constitution to bring it into line with some of their changes in the statutes, so that's the big thing to do over the first few months.

"Nothing major, just bringing in arbitration provisions and generally tidying it up.'' Meanwhile, the management and role of the elite athletes fund also looks likely to come under review.

The fund has frequently been the target of criticism regarding the qualification criteria used to decide which athletes are able to receive funding and which are not.

"We're going to review it,'' continued the new president. "We've had it running for a number of years and find we've had one or two problems.

"The major problem is that not enough people know how it really functions, so we'll probably do a better education programme on how the elite fund functions with the federations.'' Asked about the common specific complaint that, while funding cannot be derived from the fund until one becomes an elite athlete, in today's world of high stakes competition it takes a great deal of money to get to the elite level, Hoskins noted this to be a sensitive area.

"It is a problem, obviously,'' he admitted. "(But) we're not in the area of training athletes, the national governing bodies should be doing that. They should be getting them moving through the initial stages.

"We get involved when they're at the elite stage, where we -- sort of -- highlight the ones who are potentially going to be competitors at the major Games.

"So, I'm sure that it's a problem with young athletes -- and I think the Government has addressed this in some areas by giving some scholarships to young people -- but it's not an area we can get into too deeply, because we'd be involved in 20 sports, analysing all the young people in the 20 sports, and then we'd be interfering, possibly, in the administration of those sports.

"Really, at the lower levels it's got to be the governing bodies doing it.

"Our role, basically, is to send people to the major festivals. We do, obviously, get involved in helping with the elite athletes programme.

"It's a limited area in which we function. We don't have a whole load of members, our members are all the different sports bodies, so we have a very limited role, ours is in keeping the Olympic movement going ... that's about it.'' Hoskins held out praise for the outgoing Woods, intimating that he had thoroughly enjoyed serving with the immediate past president, whether it was in making decisions or travelling for the Olympic cause.

"Austin did a very good job. I worked very well with him for 20 years and we were very close in most of the decisions that were made.

"If we've made errors it's probably he and I, but if we did something right it was probably mostly him.

"We got along fine and travelled the world extensively together.'' Hoskins is joined on the list of officers by vice-president Mike Cherry, secretary general Judy Siddle Simons, and treasurer Carol Bromby. Members at large include Phillip Guishard, Stan Douglas, Jordy Walker and Pat Lake.