By Treiston Joseph
President of the Athletics Association of Guyana (AAG), Aubrey Huston, has apologised for the oversight by the Athletics Association to not include overseas athletes in the recent award ceremony, specifically Troy Doris and Brenessa Thompson for the performances in 2016.
The AAG last Saturday created a bit of a stir in the media, as no overseas athletes were nominated or even considered for awards by the association. News Room Sport reached out to the AAG boss, who apologised for the oversight, calling it a major blunder by the association.
“What happened as it relates to the overseas-based athletes not being included in the award ceremony is not an excuse I’ll put up, but I think the AAG really and truly owe these people a great apology for this. In my humble opinion, while I try to move away from micro-managing, this is the responsibility for the records and registration committee to put together of what would have transpired in athletics, particularly with the athletes who wear the Guyana colours internationally and also for competitions held locally,” Hutson pinpointed.
Meanwhile, looking at the year for Olympians Doris and Thompson, who had the most successful season for Guyana that culminated at Rio, they should have easily been Male and Female Athletes-of-the-Year.
However, Thompson and Doris were not even nominated in their respective category, which was quite bizarre, considering the successes during the period under review.
Hutson again shared his thoughts in an apologetic manner, noting that the records committee, and by extension the council, lacks results for some of the overseas athletes, but admitted that it was no excuse to not acknowledge the performances of those who have made Guyana proud.
“Like I said, I think it’s an indictment on the AAG and how it functions…sometimes information gets lost, information gets misplaced, information sometimes don’t even come in. For example, Brenessa’s performances throughout the college year we have no hard copy record of it, what we may have is the Aliann Pompey results and the Olympic results.
“While the argument can be made that is what we are suppose to be looking at because that’s when she was wearing Guyana colours, it’s a decision that that committee and the council by extension has to make, but I wouldn’t sit here and try to make an excuse anybody and the work that they did, I think it was a serious oversight on behalf of the Athletics Association of Guyana not to recognise what they accomplished and as President I would like to offer a public apology to them,” Hutson stated.
Nevertheless, going forward, Hutson shared the notion that there needs to be a weekly ranking system by his administration in order to really have athletes to be recognised for such a process.
Meanwhile, Thompson has already started her indoor season with record-breaking runs in the 200m, while Doris is slated to compete at a few Diamond League meets throughout the year in the lead up to World Championships.
