ANDREW WINNIE believes there are probably half-a-dozen athletes in Guernsey and Jersey who have the potential to represent Great Britain at the London Olympics. ‘The potential is there but I would never put pressure on people’s shoulders. But if they stay injury-free and keep progressing, we could see them on the TV in 2012,’ said the head of the Sportingbet CIAC.
Winnie believes the abundance of talent among local athletes is currently the highest ever.
‘It’s the best I have experienced for seven years and prior to that I have never known anything better - it just gets better and better.
‘We have always had individual superstars, but it has always been a few, which has been great, but now we have a huge number of potential champions coming through,’ he said.
‘Records are tumbling, which is a good measure of how the sport is progressing.’
He cites the reasons as a combination of good coaching, how the clubs in both islands support their athletes and sponsors coming in with more money.
However, he warns that expensive air fares are crippling CI athletics and hampering the progress of some of the islands’ most promising stars.
‘It’s holding back development instead of giving more athletes the opportunity of travelling and the high cost of air fares is being restrictive and we are reducing the number we are sending to the UK,’ he said.
His message is: competition in athletics and leaving the island to compete are essential, otherwise competitors do not develop and stagnate.
‘The ridiculous cost of air fares to the UK to compete is crippling, particularly to Southampton,’ he said.
‘I would like to see some form of agreement over the season with sports and the airlines.’
He said efforts had been made to strike a deal for about six years and prices had risen every year.
‘The difficulty with athletics is we are a team sport and we can’t book en masse with a different number competing at different times and different names all the time,’ he said.
‘If they [the airlines] could give us some form of deal, any form of reduction over the season would be appreciated.
‘Without any sponsor, Sportingbet Channel Islands Athletics Club would find it very difficult to get athletes to go anywhere.
‘When you are asking parents of younger athletes to pay a couple of thousand for a season, people start to be selective.
‘What is keeping the sport going is sponsorship,’ he stressed.
The CIAC have already been forced to cancel a sportshall athletics trip to the UK early in the new year after being quoted a return price per person of more than £200 Jersey-Southampton for under-11s.
A trip is also being booked to send a team of 40 athletes to the UK at the end of January.
‘I have asked the parents to book the air fares on the internet because I can’t get anywhere near the prices making a group booking - they are nearly double,’ said Winnie.
Article posted on 11th December, 2007 - 12.00am
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