By Treiston Joseph
News Room Sport caught up with President of the Athletics Association of Guyana (AAG), Aubrey Hutson, who shared his thoughts on the past 12 months for the sport in Guyana.
While generally happy with what transpired in 2016, Hutson shared that there were avenues for the year to be better than it was, highlighting athletes such as Chantoba Bright, Daniel Williams and Tyrell Peters as bright spots, while reiterating his disheartenment with the “performance” of the Olympic team since the AAG depends on the performances to attract major sponsors.
“To me it was a good year; could have been a lot better, but we did what we had to do under the present circumstances,” Hutson shared as he highlighted the performances of the Carifta team and South American Youth teams.
Hutson also shared his high point of the year, calling the medal haul at the South American Youth championship, a great achievement.
“There is a toss-up between South American Youth Championships where we got good coverage from the media (Argentina media); what was impressive to them was that a small contingent from Guyana who they have seen programme improve come back home with five medals was really and truly a good achievement for Guyana.
“It did not get as much media attention as we had hoped, but to medal in sprinting the way Tyrell Peters did should be an achievement we as Guyanese are proud of, and also Chantoba Bright who continues to perform although she is a young person and it gives us hope to see what our field events can do and what she can do as a young jumper,” Hutson stated.
The AAG boss also pinpointed where his association needs to improve, especially when looking at the 2016 year and was keen to point the finger at his own administration.
“I think it is my administration and I think as administrators of the sport we need more hands on deck, I am not ashamed to say that anywhere I go…we have too few hands on deck supporting the cause or the road that I would like to lead athletics; we have people in the system who have been around for a very long time and the bring institutional knowledge and some of that institutional knowledge sometimes comes with institutional baggage that some people don’t want to embrace technology.
“So in that area whether I return as president or not I would really want to push technology and have more hands on deck fighting for the cause of the athletes,” Hutson deliberated.
Meanwhile, after thanking some of his major sponsors that included Banks DIH Limited and Ansa McAL Trading just to name a few, Hutson shared his intention for 2017 should he return as AAG President.
“One of the areas for me that is of serious concern to me as president, and I think the council has began to embrace it as well, is our lack of representation at the senior level. If you note athletes beyond 17, 18 coming out of high school basically have to go either [to] the Guyana Police Force or the Guyana Defence Force if they want to continue their athletic career.
“We have no tertiary championships for an athlete who may want to gravitate to Cyril Potter, University of Guyana or GTI while still staying in school, that is one area of serious concern and we would like to implement the tertiary games,” Hutson noted.
In addition, Hutson also made mention of having more corporate games where private organisations can employ athletes and compete.
Nevertheless, Hutson, who has been at the helm of athletics since January 2013, will contest another election in January 2017 in hope of furthering his dream for athletics.
