We are doing very well for our country internationally, but when we are in Jamaica, our athletes are not being looked after. We are selling our country and marketing our country to the world and not being paid for it.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
As athletes, we sit and think, when international media or whoever make judgments or statements about Jamaica, 'Why aren't members of our federation coming out and speaking up for us?'
We are the ones out there competing, and yet we read articles and listen to people making accusations about Jamaica, and there's nobody there to take a microphone, be a big person and say, 'What you're saying is wrong, and it's a lie.'
When people come to Jamaica, we don't want them to think about the problems of Jamaica. So let them come be in their paradise.
Doing business in Jamaica is not easy, but it is rewarding.
African runners regularly work out in the United States and Europe, and the International Olympic Committee sends some of the cash from the Games to Olympic committees in poor nations, which use the money to finance their own programs.
The mantra of the National Commercial Bank is 'building a better Jamaica.' If this bank is going to be everlastingly successful, it has to take on the ailments of this society.
The Olympic Games are highly commercialised. They purport to follow the traditions of an ancient athletics competition, but today it is the commercial aspect that is most apparent. I have seen how, through sport, cities and corporations compete against each other for financial gain.
Jamaica's a country of great dichotomy. On the one hand you have a tourist industry with great beaches and resorts, but on the other you have such great poverty and the violence that goes along with that.
After one Olympics, if we invest in sports and say we will get a gold medal in the next Olympic, it doesn't work like that in sports. How it works is that you provide the infrastructure, provide education about nutrition and health.
The opportunity to represent your country at the Olympic Games is earned, not given.