Jamaica's super heavyweight boxer, Ricardo Brown (centre), celebrates winning the Pan Am Games bronze medal in Lima, Peru, with the man who beat him in the semis, Colombia's Salzedo Codazzi and, coach Gilbert Vaz (right) and Jamaica Olympic Association (JOA) President, Christopher Samuda (left) and JOA General Secretary/CEO, Ryan Foster (second right).
As they aspire to achieve loftier goals at sports’ ultimate event, the nation’s latest qualifiers for the Olympic Games and sporting associations they represent, have expressed gratitude to the Jamaica Olympic Association (JOA) for the assistance afforded in attaining their Tokyo goal.
Boxer Ricardo Brown and history-setting diver, Yona Knight-Wisdom, were recently rewarded with qualification spots to the Tokyo Olympics by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), world sports’ governing body.
Results achieved at regional and global events such as the Pan Am Games were used to decide qualifiers. Importantly, sports’ local apex body, the JOA, played a lead role in the participation of Jamaica’s athletes at these events and also other events and training that formed part of their overall preparation, which was geared towards the Olympics.
“I want to say thank you to the JOA because if it wasn’t for them I would still be out there trying to get a chance to qualify,” said Brown. “I want to thank them for the hard work and funding they put out to get me where I am now.”
Knight-Wisdom, who is making it to his second Olympics Games – a first-time achievement for a Caribbean diver - expressed that the JOA has been backing his talent for a long time.
He said: “The JOA’s support along the way has been great, being able to compete at events such as the CAC Games, Commonwealth Games and Pan American Games. They were really important, helping me grow on my level of experience and giving me all the competitions I needed, plus all the other ones that I did separately - the Grand Prix’s, the World Championships, and it was really helpful. On top of that, being able to receive the IOC Scholarship since 2017, probably I have received 10 instalments of that, not including the current period. That has basically kept me afloat.”
He added: “Payment for rent and bills made everything else more challenging than before Rio and the JOA, making sure I received my IOC money, it was extremely helpful.”
The president of the Jamaica Boxing Board, Stephen ‘Bomber’ Jones, said the JOA has been supporting Brown’s progress for years.
“We’re very grateful to those who have supported him. We’re grateful to the Jamaica Olympic Association (JOA), they have been following him before the Panam Games when he got his bronze medal and they have been there throughout the pandemic,” Jones highlighted. “Even with the pandemic, he has been in Canada training because he has more competition there because there are more people in his weight class that he could compete against. Before the pandemic, he was training there.”
Continuing, Jones said: “He has been at the tip of the tongue for the JOA. They have followed his trajectory and when we realised that there were going to be no more qualifications in the Americas for the rest of the boxers who were supposed to represent us as well they were steadfast in making sure that Ricardo, the fact that he has an AIBA world ranking, they wanted the boxing federation to make sure that his name was at the top of the list to at least have one of us qualify for the Olympic Games. So we’re grateful for them (JOA) in that regard and wish Ricardo all the best.”
As a matter of fact, there are high hopes that the Jamaican boxer will medal in Tokyo.
“We are expecting him to come back with the first medal in boxing that Jamaica has ever achieved at the Olympic Games,” said Jones.
Brown, too, is very confident.
Commenting on his medal chances, he said: “Yes. That is a must. I’m going for a medal so I’m training hard for that.”
Amateur Swimming Association of Jamaica President, Martin Lyn, commented on Knight-Wisdom’s historical achievement and the JOA’s contribution.
“I am elated that Yona has made it to another Olympics. It is the first time in the history of Jamaica and the Caribbean that a diver has made it to two consecutive Olympics. That is kudos to the ASAJ,” said Lyn.
“The journey would not have been as successful without the help of the JOA. The JOA has been extremely supportive of our diver and we definitely have welcomed that support. It has definitely increased over the years and Yona himself is very appreciative of the help. He couldn’t have done it without us,” Lyn revealed.
Knight-Wisdom, who finished 14th in Rio, is aiming for a better finish four years on.
“I want to improve on what I did in Rio. I missed out on making the final by eight points,” he said.
“I was disappointed, I knew I could have competed better so as soon as I finished I was already thinking about the next cycle and what I can do and improve on what I did in Rio and make that final,” he added.
“That is what I would love to do this time. It’s going to be challenging, it’s going to be tough because there are a lot of good divers out there,” Knight-Wisdom shared. “I can’t wait to compete and represent Jamaica as best as possible, put Jamaica on the map in the diving world.”
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.
Olympic champion Yulimar Rojas suffers Achilles injury in training; out of Paris Games
Olympic triple jump champion Yulimar Rojas has been ruled out of Paris 2024 with an Achilles tendon injury. The Venezuelan superstar jumper sustained the injury during a training session in Spain and has since undergone surgery in Madrid.
She shared the devastating news to her more than one million followers on Instagram on Friday.
"To my Venezuela, to the family of the Olympic and Sports Movement, especially to my followers; I want to inform you that I will not be able to participate in the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. With great pain and sadness I want to tell you that while training, by falling downhill from a jump, I was in intense pain that was diagnosed with an injury to my left Achilles tendon. My heart is broken and I want to say sorry that I will not be able to take part in Paris 2024," the 28-year-old said in a statement on her Instagram account.
“Today, I feel very emotionally affected by not being able to represent the team. The desire to defend my Olympic title excited me enormously but today I have to stop, understand this, recover and come back with a lot of strength to continue flying together,” she added.
Easily the most dominant female triple jumper in history, Rojas, is the current indoor and outdoor triple jump world record holder. She won gold at the Tokyo Olympics Games and is a four-time world champion, the last coming in dramatic fashion in Budapest last year. Her absence opens the door up to a number of contenders who will be gunning for their first Olympic title. Chief among them will be Jamaica's Shanieka Ricketts, Thea LaFond from Dominica as well as well as Cuba's Leyanis Perez Hernandez and the Ukraine's Maryna Bekh-Romanchuk.
Rojas expressed her anguish at not being able to defend her Olympic title.
"Today I feel emotionally affected by not being able to represent them, the desire to defend my Olympic title excited me enormously but today I have to stop, understand this, recover and come back with a lot of strength to continue flying together."
She wished the athletes representing Venezuela the best of fortunes in Paris this summer.
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.
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