Call to rethink sports funding

BARBADOS’ chef de mission at the Pan Am Games, Orson Simpson, is advising the Barbados Olympic Association (BOA), National Sports Council and sporting federations to have a conversation to prioritise future funding for sport to excel.

The former Squash Association president and current BOA treasurer was giving his overview of Barbados’ performance at the games where the best efforts were in athletics, where Shane Brathwaite gave the country its first gold medal at the Pan Am Games by winning the men’s 110 metres hurdles.

Greggmar Swift was fourth in the same event while half-miler Sade Sealy set a new national record in the women’s 800 metres with another fourth-place finish.

“I believe that the Sports Council, the BOA and the federations need to sit down and discuss their plans for sports in the country. We have a number of disciplines where 12 were represented in Peru. But we have to look at what is priority because funding is very limited,” Simpson said. (KB)

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