PAUL Wright, noted doctor of sports medicine, says schools have been taking the annual Inter-Secondary Schools Sports Association (ISSA) Boys’ and Girls’ Athletic Championships much too seriously, resulting in young athletes being overworked and abused.

“Children are not small adults, people seem to forget,” Wright told Observer reporters and editors yesterday at the newspaper’s weekly Monday Exchange.

An orthopaedic surgeon, Dr Wright said there have been several instances where student athletes have been brought to him at his practice with sport-related injuries, which, he said, were due to “overuse”

“I see children who are training three/four hours a day, six days a week,” Wright said. “It is wrong. We are damaging them.”

However, Calabar High School athletics coach, Michael Clarke, who was also a guest at the Monday Exchange, said that while he was amazed by the phenomenon that Champs has become, was not in agreement with Dr Wright.

Clarke, the father of former Jamaica College athlete Sekou, said that abuse was relative and that accusing coaches of that was itself “a subtle way to abuse coaches”.

“I find it offensive,” he said.

Clarke, who has coached winning St Jago, Calabar and Jamaica College Boys’ Championships teams, said that the common perception of abuse is one in which one athlete competes in several events. However, he felt that under-preparing an athlete for an event could be termed abuse.

Wolmer’s Boys’ Dwayne Extol, who competed in the 200m, 400m, 400m hurdles, and also the mile relay at this year’s Championships was cited as one athlete who, while competing in a number of events, left the Championships apparently injury-free.

“Emotional and physical under-preparation is abuse,” Clarke stated.

Wright, in the meantime, said that what pertains now differs a great deal from his days as a schoolboy at Wolmer’s when sports were about fun.

“It (Champs) is the nursery that has produced people that are now world icons,” he said. “People seem to think athletes are small adults and treat them as such.”

Wright also charged that preparation for Champs had turned into a profession.

“We’re churning out coaches and these guys have gone out and produced people we would never imagine would be great,” he stated.