The Editor, Sir:

The Sunday Gleaner of August 24 gave a more-than-usual feast of great reading. Columnists Kevin O'Brien Chang and Orville Taylor gave great analyses of the reasons for our athletic prowess - athletes coming up through the school system from primary school sports to Champs etc.

Chang also gave the most plausible reason for Asafa's occasional failures at big events. Both Ian Boyne and Edward Seaga gave their usual in-depth articles.

Boyne quotes Seaga at one point about inner city and rural children excelling at sports and entertainment.

However, Earl Flynn in a subsequent letter seems to have interpreted Boyne's quote of Seaga as saying that upper and privileged classes in Jamaica have "never contributed anything worthwhile in advancing Jamaica!" I refuse to believe that Seaga meant this.

It is true that many disadvantaged people in Jamaica have grabbed with both hands whatever opportunities were available to them.

Educational opportunities

Unfortunately, educational opportunities have not been as readily available to them as to the middle and upper classes. The middle and upper classes, therefore, tend to make use of educational opportunities.

The lines are not that clearly drawn though, as there are quite a few people from the inner city who have excelled academically against the odds.

Boyne has interviewed many of these successes on his television programme.

Additionally, it is not only inner-city people who have excelled at sports and entertainment.

Again there are numerous examples to rebut this. In sport, starting with Arthur Wint and Herb McKenley going through to people like Kathy Rattray, Grace Jackson, Bridget Foster, Michael Holding, Allan Rae and many others were from strong middle class backgrounds.

In music, people like Sean Paul and the members of the much-acclaimed Third World band are also from middle class backgrounds.I learnt recently of the amazing sacrifices made by coach Stephen Francis in his quest to advance Jamaica's athletics programme. We all owe him a lot as we celebrate.

Father's lament

Michael Frater's father lamented the lack of recognition given his son. I agree since Michael has always done his country proud without much fanfare.

However, Bruce James on TVJ's Olympic panel certainly singled out Michael Frater for his sterling contribution over a long time.

Most fascinating to me, though, was the fact that Frater Sr, while bemoaning the lack of attention given his son, then admitted that he found rallying his political delegates to be more important than watching his son's masterful gold medal winning run in the relays. Strange!

Perhaps, we all need to accept that Jamaicans are indeed wonderful/innovative people - whether from uptown or downtown.

I am, etc.,

SONIA KING

avao2005@yahoo.com