Barbados, Jamaica mull partnership to enhance local athletics training

Minister of Youth, Sports and Community Empowerment, Charles Griffith has confirmed that plans are underway to execute a partnership with Jamaica aimed at enhancing athletics training and coaching quality in Barbados. 

This collaboration, according to the Minister, will involve an exchange of coaching expertise to elevate the standard of sports training. 

Revealing that the plans to pave the way to the bilateral initiative are now official, the Minister noted that “there’s a MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) between Jamaica and us to exchange coaches to be able to work with them in terms of how we develop”.

“I was in Washington at a conference and had a sit-down with Minister [Olivia] Grange, Minister of Sports in Jamaica. They have worked with Trinidad in terms of developing the coaches there,” he revealed. 

Griffith, who was speaking at a constituency meeting on Sunday, admitted concerns about the current coaching standards in Barbados and emphasised the necessity of having highly skilled coaches to match the calibre of world-class athletes. 

According to him, “I won’t push it at this meeting but I’m concerned with the level of coaches. I think that if you’re going to have a world-class athlete, you must match that athlete with a world-class coach.”

The Minister of Sports further shared that upcoming infrastructural developments are in place to complement ongoing sporting initiatives within the country.

“I’m looking to see how we can have that marriage where we can fuse resources together in terms of working with Jamaica to develop the athletes on island. Hopefully by next week or the week after, you will see work starting on the old netball stadium to turn that into a multi-discipline facility for netball, basketball, and volleyball,” he announced. (SM)