Caribbean keen on Jamaica’s model for sports development

MINISTER of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport Olivia Grange says Jamaica will be hosting a delegation from the Trinidad and Tobago Government who will conduct a study tour of the country’s sports programme.

The Trinidad and Tobago delegation will be led by the Minister of Sports Shamfa Cudjoe.

As part of the study tour they will visit a number of schools and institutions, including the Jamaica Antidoping Commission, and participate in discussions with Grange and officials in the Ministry of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport.

“They want to look at setting up a high school boys’ and girls’ champs like ours in Jamaica. They want to look at our athletes insurance plan because they want to establish an insurance plan as well. And, they want to look at G C Foster [College of Physical Education and Sports] to see how we implement such an excellent sports programme in the various disciplines through that institution,” Grange was quoted as saying in a widely circulted release on Friday.

Jamaica will also be sharing its expertise with several other Caribbean countries next week when it hosts the World Anti-doping Agency Forum for ministers of sports from the region January 26-27, 2023 in Kingston.

“Jamaica is like a model. We have a model programme and WADA wants us to help in leading the charge in the region and to mobilise the ministers of sports. What we hope to achieve is to come up with an action plan for the region in anti-doping because a number of the countries in the region do not have [fully fledged] programmes; and because we have a full programme we will be able to give the technical support that is required,” said Grange.

“We are proud of what we have been able to do in the short time that we established the [Anti-doping in Sport] Act and have been administering the programme. Because we are so well known across the world — in track and field in particular and other sports disciplines — we sometimes are seen as a country that has to be looked at very closely when it comes to anti-doping practices. And we are proud that we have been able to actually demonstrate that we support clean sports and actually live what we preach,” she added.

Delegates from 19 Caribbean countries — including more than a dozen sports ministers — are confirmed for the forum which will be attended by the president of the World Anti-doping Agency, Witold Ba ka.