Paul A. Reid, Staff Reporter
WESTERN BUREAU :
AN 'ADMINISTRATIVE blunder' by the Jamaica Amateur Athletics Association (JAAA) which saw an over-age athlete being entered for the recent 34th CARIFTA Games in Tobago might have cost the island a bigger medal tally and left the track body with egg on its face.
Mannings School athlete Venese Simms, who won the Under-17 discus at the CARIFTA Trials in March, ended up competing in the Under-20 section at the meet in the twin-island republic after it was discovered she would be 17 in October of this year, which would make her ineligible for the age group.
JAAA officials are, meanwhile, at a loss to explain how the mistake could have been made and two members of the delegation to Tobago, head of delegation Freddie Green and team manager Dwight Cunningham, pointed an accusing finger at Mannings.
Simms, a first-year Class II athlete, has a personal best throw of 36.40m that she did to win the event at Western Champs this year and won at CARIFTA Trials with 34.92m ahead of Manchester High's 15-year-old Geneve Greaves and Amoy Robinson of St Jago.
DISMAL PERFORMANCE
At the VMBS Girls' Champs, Simms was fourth in the Class II event behind Edwin Allen's Latoya Nation (41.34m), Deborah Rose of Meadowbrook (38.13) and Greaves (34.04m).
In Tobago, Greaves won the Under-17 section with 35.42m, while Simms was ninth in the Under-20 section with a best throw of 33.85m with a heavier discus that she would not have had to use if she had competed in the lower age group.
Green told The Gleaner the mistake was made simply because of oversight and agreed that the JAAA "wasted a pick" when they selected Simms.
"The whole thing started with Mannings. They entered her in the wrong age group to begin with, someone should have picked it up. It was an error, which was complicated by the inability to discover the error," Green said.
Green said that because Simms had competed in Class II at Champs, it might have "influenced people in not identifying that she is really Under-20 by CARIFTA standards."
While agreeing with Green that the initial mistake could have been caused by Mannings entering the athlete in the wrong age group, "maybe not understanding the age criteria in the first place and, therefore, would have entered her in the first place", Cunningham said the final selections were done by a committee.
The CARIFTA team manager said he could not explain how the athlete was allowed to compete in the Under-17 section at CARIFTA Trials saying, "I got a team and when we were completing the registration on the day, probably we should have picked it up that the ages were different."
OVERSIGHT
He explained that she was over-age by only three months, adding "When we were completing the registration to send across, we may have overlooked it because it would have come to us pre-selected. It was an oversight; we did not actually pick it up until we were in Tobago."
Mannings School has however hit back at the JAAA saying it is "not going to accept any responsibility for any mistake made" with the registration of the athlete.
Diana Gopaulsingh, who was responsible for the entries for the Westmoreland school, said Simms was invited by the JAAA to the trials and she had ensured the passport and all relevant documents were handed over on the third day of the recent VMBS Champs, "enough time for them to have sorted out any problems."
Gopaulsingh, who has been involved in sports for more than three decades, said the JAAA and the CARIFTA Committee had "sufficient officials" who could have double-checked each entry as they are done for Champs.
She said the mistake was not done on purpose.
"We have been sending athletes to the national junior teams for years now and we are fully aware of what is required," Gopaulsingh said.
