The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

AS we turn over a new leaf of life for the new year, Bahamas Olympic Committee president Romell Knowles expressed his desire for the Bahamas heading into the Olympic Games in July.

The world’s greatest sporting spectacular is set for July 26 to August 11 in Paris, France.

It’s the quadrennial event for the International Olympic Committee that includes the Central American and Caribbean Games, the Pan American Games and the Olympics, all of which take place in a four-year cycle. Today, as Tribune Sports starts its series of expectations from the various sporting bodies in the island nation, we focus on the BOC, headed by Knowles, who was re-elected to office last year for the next four years.

“How do we make sports funding more sustainable?” Knowles asked. “For example, it’s important for sporting federations, for its budgetary purposes, to know exactly when and when they will have access to the government grants.

“I can tell you that I know that the Minister (Mario Bowleg) is working diligently to ensure that sports is funded. We intend to offer him the support that he needs because national sports federations really need the funding from the government and the private sector.”

Knowles, who served as a former versatile athlete turned administrator in softball and volleyball before he ventured into the BOC, said they will be looking at ways of sensitising the public sector on how they can invest in the athletes of the country.

“We jump on the bandwagon when our athletes attain their success, but I ask corporate Bahamas what have you done to assist,” Knowles said. “I know some of them have and some of them will.

“We just want to prick their subconsciousness to ensure that we get the best returns on their investments because as we look at some of the social ills in our country, if sports were properly funded, I think we have the antidote in sports to assist in combating their social ills.”

If sports is properly funded, both from the private and the government sectors, Knowles said they can better accommodate the sporting organisations in the country.

And although he admitted that it’s against his conscience, he said there is an opportunity and a need for the establishment of a national sports lottery in the Bahamas so that sports is properly funded.

“That would enable us to address some of the social ills, we can address culture,” Knowles said. “We just came through a heck of a cultural experience with junkanoo.

“How do we sustain junkanoo? Through education. We know the challenges we are having in our government schools with the shortage of teachers and equipment. How do we change that? How do we support that? How do we ensure the three pillars of our country - sports, education and culture - how do we make it more economically viable for all involved in a mighty way?”

This year, as they seek to assemble the best team possible to represent the Bahamas at the Olympics, Knowles said they will do all they can to secure the necessary funding for the federations to get the athletes ready to compete.

He noted there are also plans to assist the federations with sound business advice and preparing athletes for life after they would have retired from competing.

As for competing, the BOC plans to assist the Bahamas Basketball Federation in its efforts to get the men’s national basketball team qualified to compete in the Olympics.

The team is on the verge of becoming the first Bahaian team sport to compete at the games. The team qualified to compete in the Olympic Qualifying Tournament that will take place in July in Paris just ahead of the games.

In addition to basketball, the Bahamas is hoping to qualify athletes to compete in the traditional sports such as track and field, swimming, boxing, tennis, beach volleyball and judo.