The Olympics And Sports

viagra times, generic viagra serif;”>The whole Bahamas was on pins and needles on the night of 13 August to see if our only real hope for winning a gold medal at the Olympics in Rio De Janiero, Shaunnae Miller was going to make it.  Ariana Vanderpool Wallace just missed her last chance to medal ever after a distinguished and pioneering career in swimming for Bahamians when she finished in the pack in the pool.  Close but not close enough. Chris Brown did not make it in what is likely his last run at the Olympics. Age has caught up with him.  Stephen Newbold made a valiant effort and he has good potential, but it all came down to the Amazon woman Shaunnae. It caused us to reflect on sports and how sports is actually funded. Largely these people make it on their own.  They get what is called elite subventions from the Ministry of Sports but nowhere near what is needed for them to keep themselves fit and proper for the international, sporting competition.  What they give in return to the country is amazing: brief shining moments that the country could never pay for.  The reflection became more poignant as we read the stories of the US athletes who compete in a rich country but they themselves have to maintain themselves and have to scrap to get there and scrap to maintain themselves and even get taxed off their winnings and off their gold medals.   It is interesting because of what the athletes want, particularly at the end of their careers when all the glory days are done. Recognition.  Waltea Rolle, a female professional athletes from the Bahamas in US basketball, is pissed that no one recognised according to her, her ground-breaking achievements she said.  Derek Atkins, the former silver medallist from the World Championship in the 400 in 2008, says the same thing.  Why isn’t, he says, his picture in the Hall of Fame at the airport in Nassau.  People jumped all over him when he appeared to trash Buddy Heild in seeking to plead his own (Atkins) case. Didn’t agree with what he said either, but it seems to us that we can do better in the way we support these folk who bring so much to the country.  Just what we can do, not sure but we can do more.