by JUSTIN MARVILLE

GAS RISES AND FALLS.

Leadership of the Opposition is up in arms.

And Barbados went down to Trinidad and Tobago in a regional cricket encounter.

So what else is new?

Maybe it's the manner in which we lost Monday's disheartening semi-final, because it certainly wasn't the result - one that fails to represent a change in fortunes over five abysmal years.

Actually, it's really not different from the dismal results in any of the sporting disciplines versus the Soca Warriors.

Not in recent times at least.

Cricket just gets more of the undesired wrath in the public eye due to the status of being the country's national game.

Well, that and the fact that the unfancied Bajans have only eked out three favourable decisions against their tormentors in the past 18 affairs - a record of futility matched only by Wile E. Coyote in his tireless pursuit of the Road Runner.

Even former United States president John F. Kennedy probably had more success in trying to overthrow the Fidel Castro regime.

On the other side of the coin, the men in red own 12 victories in this cou cou/callaloo series during that span, duly converting them into seven regional titles.

And if you want to count last season's Stanford Super Series Champions Cup over Middlesex, then the total bumps up to eight.

But the dismaying returns go far beyond the boundary as the other ultramarine and gold clad squads haven't fared significantly better in solving the ongoing Trinidad and Tobago jinx.

In football, Jack Warner's men boast of a near identical record over Barbados, beating them 12 times in 18 games while surrendering just two losses; the last of which came in 1997.

Coincidentally, that year was also the last occasion our athletes finished ahead of the Trinis at the CARIFTA Games, copping a best ever 33 medals (11 gold, 11 silver, 11 bronze) to place second behind perennial powerhouses Jamaica.

Their track and field superiority doesn't stop at the regional level though, considering that the twin-island republic has produced three world class sprinters (Marc Burns, Darrel Brown and Richard Thompson) since Ato Boldon's retirement, and they have two Olympic medals among them.

Now that Oba's gone, Barbados can only boast of World Champion Ryan Brathwaite, who has yet to make his mark at the summer games.

Trinidad and Tobago even have a medal at the Olympics in swimming through the efforts of George Bovell at Athens, while our legacy in the sport is resigned to Leah Martindale's finals appearance more than a decade ago.

There was a time when the Bajans had actually caught up to the former world champs in netball, but that now seems so long gone that it's beginning to rival Lord Nelson's statue in age.

So too our one-time reign of women's volleyball that ended with successive finals defeats to the big hitting Kelly Ann Billingy and the Trini lasses.

And our southern neighbours never seemed satisfied with the aforementioned six disciplines, laying waste to our lone claim to dominance after emphatically ending a 13-year drought to Barbados at this year's Caribbean Basketball Championships.

The names might be different but the damning results are all the same.

Daren Ganga shows up Corey Collymore, Ryan Hinds, Dwayne Smith, Jason Haynes and whoever sorry soul we put at the helm of our cricket side.

Thompson floats by Andrew Hinds. Billingy out-hits Shari Matthews.

It's callaloo over cou cou again and again with more repetition than a recurring decimal.

Even their flying fish seemingly garners top dollar.

It speaks to the wretched shortcomings of both the Ministry of Sport, and by extension the National Sports Council, who appear content with doing the mere minimum to sustain each respective sport.

They've sat by quite content with running primary and secondary school competitions, using lower level coaching and outdated equipment at antiquated facilities and expect to produce the same results of their southern counterparts.

Trinidad and Tobago's government pumps millions of dollars into sports, culminating with the evolution of the Centre For Future Training - a multi-million dollar programme that caters to athletes 13 to 17 years old.

But there are indeed greater failings here at work than those of the ministry.

It lies with the pride of our people and the existing culture among us which stubbornly refuses to comprehend the value of sports in this new age.

Just ask any corporate business entity for help with a prospective athlete, and you'll hear that it's most unfortunate that you've come when the yearly budget has long been planned.

Yet some of those same companies freed up their pockets like Bussa to make sure to attach their brand to Brathwaite's image in the guise of congratulatory messages.

Then came the subsequent, yet bigger debacle at Kensington Oval, where each enterprise basically tried to outdo the other in showering a visibly worn 21-year-old as if it were his christening - in a recession no less.

The only problem is that the monetary donations would've been better suited in the hands of the Amateur Athletics Association when they were trying to develop him into an elite athlete - not after the fact.

But that's what it means to be a Bajan.

We only jump on the wagon when it reaches "destination success". I mean who would want to travel the boulevard of broken dreams anyway?

Especially seeing that gas may be down today and up tomorrow.

But what else is new?

justinmarville@

nationnews.com