Asafa's folly

I am irritated by Asafa Powell’s latest performance. No, he hasn’t lost some race he was meant to win, again. This time, my annoyance stems from his role in kabuki theatre, staged by him and his coach Stephen Francis of the MVP track club.

Not for the first time, Coach Francis refused to submit his athletes to train with the Jamaican national team, ahead of a world championship meet. For the upcoming World Athletics Championship in Berlin, MVP athletes Powell, Shelly-Ann Fraser, Melaine Walker, Shericka Williams, Brigette Foster-Hylton and Kaliese Spencer, all failed to show up for the national training camp in Nuremberg.

The Jamaica Amateur Athletic Association (JAAA) rules make it mandatory for athletes to assemble as a national team before representing the country. The basis for this is clear: individual athletes cease to be atomized professional competitors and become a national squad – competing for Jamaica – at events such as the World Athletics Championship and the Olympics. A training camp before a meet is meant to foster team spirit, as well as give time for team work activities, for example, relay practice.

Coach Stephen Francis always seems to buck this rule. He pulled a similar diva trip at the Beijing Olympics last year. No doubt at the end of their tether, the JAAA asked the International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF) to remove the offending MVP athletes from the starting list. It took the personal intervention of IAAF president Lamine Diack to reinstate them. Diack said that while he was entitled to do as asked by the Jamaican track and field authorities, he thought the punishment was too strong. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/athletics/8194447.stm

For my two cents, Asafa et al should have been made to watch the meet from the bleachers in Berlin. It is hard to listen to the former 100m world record holder feign ignorance of the rules and victimization by the JAAA. He and his coach bluffed, on the conviction that they were too big to be dropped from the Jamaican national team. The IAAF reinstatement gives impunity for rule-breaking selfishness. Team morale must be at an abysmal low in Nuremberg.

It is breathtaking that this matter could not have been resolved before it became an international spectacle. The whole mess invoked memories of the Sydney Olympics, when Jamaican athletes protested the inclusion of Merlene Ottey in the national squad. Are we to believe that the JAAA lacks the moral authority to deal with a recalcitrant coach and his wayward athletes? If the answer is yes (and I believe it is), this is a sad state of affairs.