WELCOME BACK!

WELCOME BACK!

Intercol is to Grenada and Grenadians what football is to Brazilians and hockey is to Canadians and the turnout at today’s (March 30^th) final day of competition drove home that point resounding.

First off, the adults – on either side of the divide- should feel ashamed that, pandemic aside, young student-athletes were denied the opportunity for this level of competition and engagement because grown adults could not find an amicable solution to a labor dispute. One hopes this behavior is something of the past never to be repeated.

No less a person that Grenadian Olympian and ‘Iron Man’ Lindon Victor noted in a social media post earlier this evening, “the future of track and field in Grenada is in good hands”.

Anyone, with even a casual interest in the just concluded Intercol will have to agree, wholeheartedly. The performances, spirited and fraught with raw emotions, buoyed by natural talent and gritty determination makes Lindon’s words, track and field gospel.

The familiar names, the household names, the ‘veterans’, the newcomers all contributed to a most memorable return of Intercol.

The Organizers must be commended for the inclusion of the Special Education athletes in this year’s meet and the addition of the combined events. And with each new challenge, each new level of contest our young athletes are stepping to ensure our track and field future is indeed in good hands.

To the Officials the selfless commitment to three days under the blistering sun makes you champions in your own rights. Keith Williams in particular, words cannot describe your efforts in every meet leading up to and including Intercol. Those who are responsible for assigning national honors must not be attending track and field meets, but I digress.

The effort to provide one central broadcast feed for Intercol was certainly the right decision and making the television broadcast free-to-air for the local audience with a pay-per-view option for audiences elsewhere was unquestionably forward-thinking and must be maintained. Now that Intercol is being broadcast to a wider audience issues about the quality of the on-air talent must be addressed in a very serious manner. Workshops, pre-Intercol broadcast meetings and the coverage of school sports leading up to Intercol must all be pre-requisites for Intercol broadcast coverage. Broadcasters are conveyers of the action through descriptive and simple language. The avoidance of cliches and sounding like cheerleaders of a particular school or athlete, cheapens the quality of the broadcast and does a disservice to the action on the track. Grenada has the talent it just requires preparatory work and dedication and a duty to showcase the athletes in a most neutral and controlled tone and nothing else. The same goes for the in-venue announcers, neutrality is your friend embrace it. Provide the audience with the necessary information while sidestepping the urge to be cheerleaders for a particular school or athlete.

Outside of Jamaica, Grenada’s Intercol is the region’s largest and most dynamic schools’ athletics meet. To grow it as a product and event will require greater effort, deeper thinking and planning, a wider scope of involvement and a bigger vision for what the Meet means to the student-athletes in particular and Grenadians as a whole. It is a showcase of our best and with the present-day technology, other schools, coaches, agents and recruiters now have access to the performances in real time to make decisions that can positively affect the life of a young Grenadian forever. Let us not undervalue nor undersell this fantastic platform.

Congratulations to all who made the past three days a success; corporate Grenada, the Volunteers, the Organizers – but most importantly the young student-athletics who were deprived this stellar stage, through no fault of theirs, for the past four years or so.

To all the participants in Intercol 2023 you are all winners, to the medalists and those accumulating the most points, well done. And to Intercol – Welcome back!

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