Gets Stern Warning from SLOC Secretary.
A new seven-member executive committee for the Karate Federation Saint Lucia headed by Sensei Oliver Lawrence was installed on Saturday.
The executive also includes Ezra Jn. Baptiste (Vice President), Karim Sifflet (Secretary), George Radjou (Treasurer), Trevor Bristol (Assistant Treasurer) and Kendal Burton (Public Relations Officer).
Also present at the function was Saint Lucia Olympic Committee Inc. General Secretary, Alfred Emmanuel, who cautioned the newly-installed executive about the implementation of its plans.
“It is encouraging to look at a calendar of activities, but if you are able to implement at least 90 percent of it, you are on the right track,” Emmanuel said.
He warned the executive that the road would not be smooth and that it would be up to the leadership of the federation, along with its rank and file members, to navigate the journey ahead.
“The Olympics is the ultimate stop, the last stop on the journey, but before the Olympics you need to take into consideration that you must plan for at least two other multi-sporting events. One, the Central American and Caribbean Games, which is slated for Colombia in 2018 and the next step of the journey is the Pan American Games scheduled for Lima, Peru in 2019,” Emmanuel said.
He added, “You must first be able to qualify our athletes for the lesser games; we need to first of all qualify athletes for the CASCO Games, then try to increase the numbers of qualifiers for the Pan Am Games with the ultimate hope that we can get at least one qualifier for the Tokyo 2020 Games.”
Alfred continued, “Rio was a ray of hope where one athlete was able to qualify for the finals of the female high jump and more so was able to return a sixth place finish. We are hoping that with such performance, the other sporting disciplines and their athletes would see the need to persevere and come up with the necessary results. Going forward, I urge the leadership of this federation to study carefully all available programmes and decide what is in your best interest and ensure that you plan properly, plan adequately and think it out thoroughly before presenting a request for assistance to the SLOC.”
Meanwhile, in order to prepare the athletes for qualifiers, including the Central American and Caribbean Games in Colombia in 2018 and the Pan American Games in Peru in 2019, a Technical Committee has been established headed by Sensei Ezra Jn Baptiste
The Federation has a packed calendar of activities planned in preparation for the 2020 Games. In addition to intense training programmes it is the hosting of a variety of public sensitization activities, including its national tournament set for Saturday, March 11.
