Vincentian Olympians Shafiqua Maloney and Handal Roban are calling for there to be greater collaboration among the nation’s athletic coaches.
The duo shared this sentiment during an appearance on WE FM’s Activated Mornings program on Tuesday, as they discussed their 2024 Olympic experience.
Maloney said that collaboration of coaches will result in an increased higher quality athletic performance from Vincentian athletes.
“Another thing I would like to see is just coaches working together. I think if they treat the country like one big school, then have athletes. Because that’s the difference between these countries and the collegiate system and why they’re able to, you know, have athletes perform. Because in a school system, all the coaches work together. Everybody know their own down to the tee and what it takes to make athletes in each event. You don’t have a sprints coach trying to coach distance or a distance coach trying to coach the throwing events. And so I think if we treat the country as one big school and all the coaches work together to get that, because at the end of the day, it’s about the country. Not about this is my athlete or whatever the case is, it’s about the country. So we treat the country like a school and each coach work together to get the country to where it could be, I think we would be in a better place.” Maloney said.
Handal Roban, during the interview expressed support for Shafiqua on this point. Calling for coaches to form an organization, to bring their expertise together for the benefit of the nation’s athletes.
“In terms of like the coaches working together, I would say like they should probably form an organization where every coach have a specific event they work on because everyone is good in certain like disciplines like there’s a sprint coach, there’s– Pamenos Ballantyne good in distance. I mean, Morgan is good in middle distance. Chester Morgan is good in sprints. Mercy is good in sprints. Like I think if everyone comes together and work as one and just put pride aside, like I don’t care who gets offended after this, but if you guys just put your pride aside and work together and put the athletes first and think about their future and how it would benefit them and eventually everyone will be benefited in the long run, then I think we will be like among the rest of the Caribbean in terms of like going to CARIFTA games, getting a lot of medals. That’s just a big thing, just putting our pride aside and invest.” Roban said.
Shafiqua Maloney and Handal Roban both represented St. Vincent and the Grenadines at the 2024 Paris Olympics in the women’s and men’s 800-meter races.
Maloney made history during her appearance at the Olympics, becoming the first Vincentian athlete to make it to an Olympic final, finishing in fourth place with a time of 1:57:66.
