MINISTER of Sport and Community Development Shamfa Cudjoe was non-committal on Friday when asked about the resumption of domestic sporting leagues.
Local leagues – specifically contact sports – have been banned since March last year and athletes and stakeholders have been crying out for a resumption.
Cudjoe was speaking during a media conference recapping the performance of Trinidad and Tobago at the Tokyo Games. Although refusing to give a timeline for action to resume, the minister said the vaccination of athletes would help put things back on track.
Many have speculated that the lack of competitive action for such a long period has affected TT's athletes.
TT finished medal-less at the recent Tokyo Olympics – the first barren return for this country since Barcelona 1992.
Experienced TT track and field athlete Emmanuel Callender told Newsday “special privileges” should have been made for local track and field athletes before the Olympics.
In Jamaica, where Callender is currently based, football and track and field have resumed over the past few months despite the country being under a state of emergency and curfew.
The Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association National Senior and Junior Championships were held from June 24 to 27 featuring several of Jamaica’s elite athletes preparing for the Olympics.
Prior to the Jamaica National Championships, roughly seven meets were held in Jamaica for senior track and field athletes.
The Jamaica Premier League (football) also kicked off.
In contrast, the National Track and Field Championships were not held as customary in June in TT. The championships serve as a late chance for local athletes to qualify for the Olympics.
Asked if TT was taking lessons from other countries in the region where sport has resumed, Cudjoe said, “I am glad you asked that question and just like any other sector…the faster we vaccinate the faster we could return to some level of normalcy. I want to repeat that for football, for hockey, whatever sport.
“We look at 54 sporting disciplines and in any area in order to get back to a level of normalcy, we need to have people who are willing to go out there and vaccinate.”
Cudjoe said athletes are still not rushing to get their vaccines.
“Even within the sporting sector vaccination hesitancy, I think, is quite high. You still have some athletes who are hesitant even in going out to Tokyo. All the members of our team (were) not vaccinated.”
Cudjoe said this country received 20 Johnson and Johnson vaccines from South Africa for the athletes travelling to the Olympics. When those vaccines arrived in TT, the Olympic contingent had already left for Tokyo. The minister said her ministry reached out to national sporting organisations offering the vaccines to athletes.
Cudjoe said for weeks it was a struggle to get 20 athletes to take the jab.
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