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• Americas Paralympic Committee gains autonomy, assumes ownership of regional games from IPC

  The Americas Paralympic Committee (APC), the regional governing body for Paralympic sports for North, South and Central America and the Caribbean with a membership of 33 countries, has gained autonomy from the International Paralympic Committee (IPC), the global apex body.

  The APC will now assume full ownership and delivery of senior and junior para regional games. In previous years, the IPC managed and sponsored those games but, after a period of several discussions and negotiations, the regional events have fallen to the APC and directors of the Jamaica Paralympic Association (JPA) are playing an instrumental role in history making.

  President of the Jamaica Paralympic Association (JPA), Christopher Samuda and JPA directors, Ryan Foster, Carmen Patterson and Winfield Boban are committing their professional expertise and experience in building the new APC.

  Samuda, an attorney-at-law, is an APC executive board director and will spearhead legal and corporate governance affairs while Foster, a chartered accountant, will, as co-chairman of the Finance Commission, pilot the financial viability and fortunes of the regional body. Patterson, a corporate communications specialist, will join regional experts in delivering the brand and marketing strategies and activations of the APC and Boban will bring to the educational portfolio his knowledge and experience gained, particularly as a practitioner in rehabilitation management and prosthetics.

  The IPC, the global governing body, delivers every four years the world’s largest multi-sport para event,  the Paralympic Games, which this year will take place in Paris, France, from August 28 to September 8. The Santiago 2023 Para Panamerican Games, which was held in Chile, from November 17 to 26, witnessed the IPC’s last ownership of the games.

  Commenting on the historic role Jamaica will play Samuda said: “It is in our sporting DNA to construct, for the able with a difference, the present and future based on values in the hope that our work and that of our colleagues will birth an apex regional sporting body of probity which history will record as revolutionary and visionary.”

  Foster, advocates the imperative of a sound financial framework and base and gives a clear signal of what will be approach. “The sub-structure of any organization is crucial to the profitability of its superstructure and frugal management of expenses, innovative investment and revenue strategies as well as disciplined treasury operations are foundational to success.”

  With the APC assuming ownership, there will be “a dominant focus on establishing and monetizing international partnerships and commercializing proprietary rights and games’ media broadcast rights” Samuda said “while building regional capacity through the delivery of business and technical activations during and external to games,” he further added.

  Games are the lifeblood of governing regional and international bodies and Foster makes the case that “APC will be to its stakeholders more than a breath of fresh air as it will represent for them the very essence and excellence of para sports.”

  The heart of the Paralympic movement across the multi-lingual continents of the Americas and the Caribbean archipelago, the APC is keeping an appointment with destiny.

• Jamaica set to host inaugural Commonwealth Sports GAPS Camp in the Americas to benefit Para-Athletes and coaches

  The Jamaica Paralympic Association (JPA) and the University of the West Indies, Faculty of Sport, in partnership with the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) on Thursday staged the launch of the inaugural GAPS (Gather, Adjust, Prepare, Sustain) Americas & Caribbean Programme to be held in Kingston, Jamaica from April 16 to 22, 2024. 

  This historic collaboration with the Jamaica Paralympic Association and the University of the West Indies has been realized, thanks to support from the President of the Jamaica Commonwealth Games Association and through the Memorandum of Understanding with the Jamaica Paralympic Association and the University of the West Indies, Faculty of Sport. During this inaugural year the programme will focus on the sport of Para-Athletics. 

  “This is a very special day for us because usually, multi-organization collaborations take a long time to come to fruition but every time we work with the Jamaica Paralympic Association, things happen very fast,” said Dean of the Faculty of Sport at UWI, Dr. Akshai Mansingh at Thursday’s launch at the University of the West Indies.

  “Para-Athletes are, in my view, some of the most talented athletes in the country,” he added.

  GAPS is a programme offered by the CGF which aims to advance inclusive sport pathways by offering athletes and coaches additional skills, knowledge and resources that help them to become a catalyst for positive social change and strengthens the Commonwealth Family bond.

  “I want to celebrate the fact that we now have the first ever GAPS camp in the Americas and the Caribbean,” remarked Commonwealth Games Federation President, Dr. Chris Jenkins, who was a virtual attendee on Thursday.

  This is a fantastic milestone. We’ve been working hard for a couple of years now and it’s finally happening. I’ve been to many GAPS camps and they’ve been truly inspirational,” he added.

  One of the main outcomes of the programme is to increase the number of countries participating at the Commonwealth Games.

  GAPS aims to address some of the unique challenges faced by para-sport athletes from the Americas & Caribbean region through a partnership programme that educates coaches, identifies talent, undertakes skill development camps, provides international internships and enables research opportunities.

  “I applaud the Commonwealth Games Federation and its President, Dr. Chris Jenkins, for their vision in enabling the able with a difference. I also salute the Faculty of Sport at the University of the West Indies for realizing this vision and affording our para-athletes an opportunity to self-actualize,” said Jamaica Paralympic Association President, Christopher Samuda.

  The GAPS Americas & Caribbean 2024 acknowledges the fundamental role the coaches play in the development of the athletes. Their development forms the foundational element of the programme. 

  The programme is designed to build a sustainable pathway for para sport development across the Commonwealth.

  The selection of the coach and athlete(s) are central to ensuring that the programme delivers on this goal and equally position the Commonwealth Games Associations to realize the dream of increasing or realizing representation of their athletes at the Commonwealth Games. 

  For the GAPS Americas & Caribbean 2024 programme, special emphasis at present, will be placed on the sport of Para athletics, with the view to expanding this to more sports in the near future. 

   

• Understandable but: Samuda says World Athletics prize money move runs counter to Olympic spirit

  While expressing an understanding for the move by World Athletics to award prize money at the Olympic Games, Jamaica Olympic Association (JOA) President Christopher Samuda believes a balance must be struck to preserve the spirit of the games.

  In an announcement on Wednesday, World Athletics stated that gold medal winners at this summer’s Paris Olympic Games, in each of the 48 athletic events, will receive US$50,000 (J$7.6 million). That same US$50,000 gold medal prize will be shared among team members of the winning team in relay events.

  World Athletics President Sebastian Coe said the decision to award the cash prizes reflected the efforts of track and field athletes “which attract billions of eyeballs” to the television coverage of the Olympics.

  “I don’t believe this is remotely at variance with the concept that the International Olympic Committee often talks about, which is recognising the efforts that our competitors make for the overall success of the Games,” Coe said.

  However, Samuda said though move is seemingly logical in World Athletics’ sight, the concept of prize money ran counter to 128 years of Olympic tradition and spirit of amateurism.

  “Giving prize money for Olympic gold medalists is understandably a sign of the times and marks what appears to be a growing high tide of world opinion. You know, the professional status of sport has brought with it, inevitably, an increase in demand for rewarding merit, particularly with the emergence of a plethora of competing interests for sporting talent as part of marketing and promotional campaigns and revenue generation,” Samuda said.

  “It is understandable in the circumstances. However, the priceless values in sport which Olympism embodies must be safeguarded,” he told SportsMax.TV.

  According to reports, the total prize fund of US$2.4 million proposed by World Athletics will come from the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) revenue share allocation that World Athletics receives every four years.

  The decision clearly blindsided the International Olympic Committee, which has never awarded money for participating or winning a medal, as it believes that to compete at a Games is reward enough.

  It is the first time since the founding of the modern Games in 1896 that a gold medal will automatically come with a guaranteed monetary prize from a sport’s governing body.

   “The priceless values in sport which Olympism embodies must be safeguarded as being critical to the heart, spirit and soul of sport, without which our efforts at creating a gentler and kinder humanity will be penniless. A balance has to be struck in the interest of sport,” Samuda stated.

  It is expected that for the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, prize money will also be extended to silver and bronze medallists.