JOA’s member associations stand with executive

Several sporting disciplines have endorsed the current direction of the Jamaica Olympic Association (JOA) and the move to support more of the minor sporting bodies to achieve international success, which also helps to increase the number of top-level athletes in the respective sports.

According to a release by the JOA, officials and athletes from boxing, weightlifting and fencing have voiced their support of the policies, with President Christopher Samuda and Chief Executive Officer and General Secretary Ryan Foster stoutly defending the decision.

American Boxing Confederation/Caribbean's light heavyweight gold medallist and Commonwealth Youth welterweight bronze medallist, Jerone Ennis, and Olympian Ricardo Brown, the 2019 Pan American bronze medallist in the super heavyweight agree that the assistance from the JOA helped their development.

"My goal is to represent Jamaica at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games and thanks to the JOA, which made it possible for me to represent Jamaica at the international level," Ennis said.

"Attending the Tokyo Olympic Games is a memory and an experience of a lifetime and the JOA was supportive in starting me in the right direction, which has expanded more opportunities for me," Brown, who turned professional in 2021, said.

Olympian and judo silver medallist at last year's Commonwealth Games in the women's 70kg weight category, Ebony Drysdale-Daley, agrees: I want to get to another Olympics and, with that, help Jamaica to improve the awareness of judo as a sport and get more persons to participate.

"Judo has given so much to my life and I want other people to experience the same, especially the youth. Ultimately, Jamaica Judo Association is really helping to build the interest in the country as we have a great potential for international success at every age group," Drysdale-Daley said.

Presidents of Jamaica Weightlifting Federation and Jamaica Fencing Federation, Dr Mark Boomfield and James McBean, respectively, were both appreciative of the support received from the JOA.

"Many only saw football, cricket, track and field and netball as the only sports worth developing and promoting but (the JOA's policy) 'out of many one people' is a platform that promotes diversity and the belief that Jamaicans can represent their country in other sporting disciplines outside of the chosen three or four," Broomfield said in the release.

McBean added: "This really speaks to the effort that the JOA is making in terms of encouraging, honing and in many ways, revolutionising the sporting landscape of Jamaica and what's also quite poignant is the way in the JOA seems to be going about this very much in line with the of the IOC."

According to the release, by helping these minor sports, the JOA is fulfilling a primary mandate of expanding and deepening Jamaica's vault in competitive sports.

Samuda and Foster maintain the policy is reaping success.

"Our commitment to those sports they call minor is not only major but is mature," Samuda said.

Foster added: "For the JOA family, two is not better than too many and while success in sports development is understandably qualitative, there is a numerical component that materially defines progress and validates the principle 'sport for all, all for sport' which is the JOA's theme for the 2024 Paris Olympic."