The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

RIO de Janeiro, Brazil — The 2016 Olympic Games have come and gone. Just like that.

The Bahamas walked away once again with the Per Capita title after producing two medals and securing five spots in a final in the athletic competition.

But in a post mortem of the games, there were a number of performances, in my opinion, that could and should have been better than they turned out.

I commend those athletes like Shaunae Miller, Pedrya Seymour, Donald Thomas, Trevor Barry, Ty’Nia Gaither and Steven Gardiner, all of whom advanced at least past the first round and, in some cases, to the final.

There is the argument and the general consensus, not just from the Bahamian perspective but the Caribbean as a whole, that the performances for the most part were not what was anticipated.

By the same token, we have to understand that the rest of the world is improving just as the Caribbean and the United States of America.

None of the countries want to be left behind and are doing a little more than we are doing to ensure that they get the maximum success from their athletes.

We say our athletes are being paid by the Bahamas Government and therefore they are obligated to compete at their best whenever they represent the country.

There are those who have criticised some of the performances of our athletes who have failed in getting past the first round and, in some cases, were the last to cross the finish line in their respective events.

I’ve seen the posts on social media where there’s a cry for the subventions to be taken away from these athletes because they are underachieving.

There is a saying that to whom much is given, much is required.

There were instances where, in the case of Jamaica, five of their athletes have switched countries and competed in other countries, including Bahrain, in the games. They have been well funded and are making the best of their situations.

I’ve spoken to some of our athletes who have struggled to perform at their maximum best and they have indicated that it’s not all as glamorous as everybody’s suggesting when it comes down to the subventions they receive.

In one instance, one of those athletes sat down with me in the Olympic Village where the athletes reside and he gave a breakdown of how the funding he recieved is spent.

It’s just mind boggling to say the least, taking into consideration that in order to be properly trained by a coach, they have to pay a fee of at least $1,000 per month.

Some of you might say, then it’s best that they return home and train.

But that’s proven not to be the ideal situation either because we’ve seen the success to failure rate of the athletes who are based at home and how far they’ve gotten on the international scene.

So for the most part, our athletes are caught between a rock and a hard place unless they are in a position where they either have secured a lofty endorsement contract or they are receiving additional funding from their family and friends.

I wish each and every athlete that receives funding to be a success. But the reality is that it’s not going to happen. The professional ranks is not as easy as it’s made out to be.

There’s been talk after talk about the establishment of a National Sports Academy where the athletes can come come and be trained by the best professional coaches we have to offer, but that has not happened.

We have coaches in the United States who are willing to come home and train our athletes as well, but as they will also tell you, the funding just isn’t there to accommodate them.

It’s going to come down to a “give and go” situation where a little more is given so that more of the athletes and coaches can say that they want to go home and train and train the athletes.

Case in point, George Cleare, the head coach for Team Bahamas in Rio, is back home and he’s coaching Steven Gardiner, the national record holder and national champion, who was the only one of the three male competitors that advance out of the first round of the 400m.

Gardiner, however, was not successful in getting to the final in his Olympic debut. It just goes to show you the level that the competition has gone too.

The final was a prime example. Michael Johnson’s world record was finally broken and it was done by South African in a field that could seen any one of the other medallists - Grenada’s Kirani James with the silver and American LaShawn Merritt with the bronze.

Merritt did predict that he was going after the world record. What he found out was that you cna’t just talk it, but you have to go out there “run” the talk.

The Olympics should serve as a lesson for all of us, not just those who are participting as athletes, but the administrators, coaches and even the media, in accepting the fact that we can’t just expect to go to the games and win.

The rest of the world is looking for the same results as well. We just have to step up our game and be a lot more prepared because if we don’t take care of all the little things, as suggested by coach Cleare, we won’t get the big results that we anticipated.

As for the games, to put it in a nutshell, it was a success.

Yes, there was a call for a boycott and some people even suggested that the International Olymic Committee should chance the venue because Rio wasn’t ready, there was the Zika virus and civil unrest.

Far from it.

I spent about three weeks there and hardly got bitten from any mosquitos, even when it rained; I didn’t noticed any mass protests and the games came and gone.

As expected, there were some glitches, but whatever they were, they were corrected and it was hardly noticed as the IOC made sure that its product was well taken care off.

There were at least two attacks on media, one on a bus and another at a venue, but no one was seriously hurt. There were some people mugged and robbed, including the media and athletes, but that’s expected in such a large populated country where there is widespread poverty.

Should they have been awarded the rights to host the games? Sure Did they deliver? Yes. Desoite all of the rumbling before the games, Rio got it done and the competition, for the most part, was of a high standard, typical of Olympiads of the past.

As the first country in South America to put on the world’s niggest sporting spectacular, it was an event to remember with all the ups snd downs, the thrills and spills and the successes and the failures.

There is enough to keepp the conversation going until the 2020 games roll around in Tokyo, Japan. As the residents would indicate when they are in agreement, “thumbs up” to Rio for getting the job done.

I had a blast, even if I ended up in darkness at the Media Village where I stayed for a great portion of Saturday night and all day Sunday because of a power failure.

It’s so good to be heading back home.