For T&T netball to get back among the top teams in the world, a key development that must take place is the establishment of a professional league.

This was the view of T&T Netball Association president, Dr Patricia Butcher while speaking on the “Calypso Girls” return from the 14th Netball World Cup which ended in Sydney, Australia on Sunday with the Joelisa Cooper led T&T placing ninth of 16 teams.

Australia emerged the champion, beating New Zealand in the final.

Butcher, who is also the president of the Americas Federation of Netball Associations (AFNA) admitted that after seeing the standard of facilities in Australia and the type of professionalism they approached the sport with, it was not hard to see why they were the best in the world.

She said, “We at home here have a lot to do before we can get back to that level, but key elements to helping us getting there is the support both from Government and Corporate T&T. There is an abundance of young netball talent here in T&T, but we need that support and we also need to look at having a professional netball league where the players are paid fulltime.”

With regards to the team’s placing, Butcher said it was a very long journey, but a very successful journey from her own perspective.

“To me ninth is a good number because we went there knowing we were in a very difficult pool with the top two ranked teams in the world in Australia and New Zealand along with Barbados.

“After the first round which we ended 1-2 losing to Australia and New Zealand, there was a second round of two pools of eight.

“The top two teams in each group played in the first pool of eight and then we were in the second pool of eight for places ninth through 16.”

However, Butcher pointed out that had the format of the tournament been a little different, T&T had a great chance of placing higher.

“At the tournament, there was a Netball Congress held and it was felt by most of the teams present that the draw made for the competition was not fair to all the nations.

“We all spoke and the International Netball Federation Congress heard us loudly and as a member of the board, I will do my best to ensure that this format does not happen again.” Commenting on the T&T team Butcher said “Our Netball was up there before in the top rankings in the world and to her the team can get back up there, but we don’t even have a proper court, because for me the Jean Pierre Complex as it is, we can forget it.

“At Mayaro there is a good facility but we cannot be trekking up there all the time to be able to practice in facilities of international standards.”

The T&TNA boss said the players she have seen from Australia, New Zealand and England play at the professional level or at the semi-professional level.

“The fact is that they are paid and play netball for a living while my players have regular day jobs and have to come to train after work in their spare times. They don’t get stipends, no proper nutrition, and not even a mental coach and other things that international teams have that we don’t have. 

“So there performance when I look at it in relation to what is happening on the international scene we have to do a lot better for our athletes than we are doing today.”

“And so as I am now on the INF board as a Director for the Americas Region and I am going to be pushing so that our entire region, inclusive of the Caribbean, America, Canada, and Argentina, we all get up there with the rest of them because Africa is coming up.”

Butcher said, “The Africa nations like Zambia, Fiji, Malawi, South Africa and Uganda, they are all playing netball and they are getting the kind of resources because they have a regional development manager who is doing work for them and getting sponsors and respective Governments to give them money to develop their netball.

“I also saw on the television there the Government is Australia has taken a decision to put a $100 million (Australian) towards the development of netball in their school system, so they are starting at the lowest level coming up and of course they are supporting their national team 100 per cent.

“So am pleading to the Minister of Sport and all who have the powers to make the decisions please do so.

“We have talented girls in this country so let us develop our talent and make this little dot on the map called T&T a consistent team on the world stage again.”

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Returning Calypso Girls skipper Joelisa Cooper emphasised the need for support and structure in the local game in the wake of their adventure at the Netball World Cup.
The Trinidad and Tobago netball team finished ninth in Sydney. However, there is a reasonable feeling in hindsight from various camps that the team was good enough to finish even higher.
Before the netballers had left for Sydney on August 1, Cooper told the Express that they had been training consistently in the two years leading up to the World Cup. None of the players were being paid for their involvement in the national set up, as there is no professional national league here.

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The Trinidad and Tobago cyclists have been given their much-need life line according to president of the Trinidad and Tobago Cycling Federation (TTCF) Robert Farrier yesterday. The team had run into a serious rut when last week they discovered that they would not be receiving funding for their air fare for the Pan American Cycling Championships next month in Santiago, Chile.
Initially, the Ministry of Sport (MoS) told the TTCF that they were unable to fund the cyclists for the championships in Chile in three weeks' time, citing exhausted funds as the cause.
The competition in Chile, crucial for the athletes because it is a UCI-sanctioned event, which will help them accumulate points towards their overall world ranking, which will determine participation at next year's Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

The Trinidad and Tobago Olympic Committee  (TTOC ) extends congratulations to Sebastian Coe on his election as IAAF President.
Mr Coe's experience and proven track record in sport,business , politics and his vision and purpose for the role of sport,in particular track and field will give him the required insight and perspective to lead the IAAF at this juncture in its history.

Sebastian Coe was today elected the new President of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), beating his only rival Sergey Bubka, here today.

Britain's double Olympic 1500 metres champion polled 115 votes to 92 for Bubka, Ukraine's former world record holder for the pole vault, at the IAAF Congress.

Coe, the former chairman of London 2012, will succeed 82-year-old Senegalese Lamine Diack, who is stepping down from the role after 16 years, at the conclusion of the IAAF World Championships, due to start in the Chinese capital on Saturday (August 22).

He is also expected now to be appointed as a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), a role he is likely to take up just before next year's Games in Rio de Janeiro.

Bubka will serve as Coe's senior vice-president after receiving 187 votes in the election that followed.

Thirty-four years to the day since he set a world record for the mile in Zürich, Coe claimed his election was the "second most momentous moment in my life" behind the birth of his children.

"These words are not in any way rehearsed, first I would like to thank Sergey for a thoroughly good and long campaign," Coe added.

"I think it has been in the best traditions of everything we both believe, we have fought according to sound judgement throughout.

"I'd like to thank President Diack for the many personal kindnesses both public and private and to you, the Member Federations, for placing your trust in me today."

Bubka was magnanimous in defeat.

"I know that athletics in the future will grow, and become stronger and stronger," he said after congratulating Coe.

The election of 58-year-old Coe came at the end of a marathon campaign during which he claimed to have travelled 700,000 kilometres - the equivalent of four times around the world - and met a representative from all 214 countries who are a member of the IAAF.

"There is no task in my life for which I have been better prepared," Coe told the IAAF Congress during a five-minute presentation before the vote.

"No job I have ever wanted to do more nor would be more committed to.

"With confidence, with affection, my friends I place myself in your hands.

"If you place your trust in me today, I will not let you down."

A key moment in Coe's victory is widely believed to have been a controversial "declaration of war" speech following allegations by German broadcaster ARD/WDR and the Sunday Times that claimed an "extraordinary extent of cheating" by athletes after they obtained blood test data from 5,000 athletes between 2001 and 2012.

Widely condemned in the media for his comments, Coe's staunch defence of the sport appeared to go down well with delegates, however.

"As you have seen in recent weeks I will always be in your corner," he told them during his presentation.

"Your fight is my fight."

Setting up an independent anti-doping agency was among the most important points in Coe's manifesto.

He only alluded to the new organisation in his address to Congress in the loosest of terms, though.

"Committing to a sport based on a strong foundation and the twin principles of trust and integrity," was one of his promises he told them.

"We could not have survived for three weeks let alone 33 centuries if we were based on anything other than that."

Coe is only the sixth President in the 103-year history of the IAAF.

He is the second Briton to hold the role, following the Marquess of Exeter, better known as Lord Burghley, who held the position between 1946 and 1976.

Like Coe, he was an Olympic gold medallist, winning the 400m hurdles at Amsterdam 1928; Like Coe, he was organiser of the Olympic Games in London, in 1948; and, like Coe, he was chairman of the British Olympic Association.

"We have a man who has devoted his life to the sport." said Diack of Coe.

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