WE are aware that cost will be considered a major hurdle. But this newspaper believes that the Inter-Secondary Schools Sports Association (ISSA) will have no choice in the not-too-distant future but to institute a drug-testing programme at the annual boys’ and girls’ athletics championships (Champs).

We agree with the highly respected sports medicine specialist Dr Paul Wright that the growing scrutiny of Jamaica’s athletics programme by the wider world makes a speedy move to drug testing at Champs very necessary.

We are told that at least 35 journalists from 12 overseas media outlets covered the latest Champs between March 24 and 27, at the National Stadium in Kingston. Among them were Sports Illustrated, Reuters News Agency and US Fitness in the United States; The Guardian newspaper and BBC Radio from the United Kingdom; FP TV from France; Popeye Magazine out of Japan; as well as FHM Magazine and Milk Magazine from China.

We should expect even more attention in the years to come, especially if, as seems likely, Jamaica’s reputation as a giant in track athletics continues to grow. In the same way that ISSA must seek to maximise financial benefits from the Champs brand, so too it must ensure that all is above-board insofar as illegal performance-enhancing substances are concerned. There is no way to do that other than through a properly managed and globally recognised drug-testing programme.

Such will also reinforce in the minds of athletes — from an early age — and all other stakeholders the need to rigorously prevent the ingestion of prohibited substances.

We must also applaud Dr Wright on his stance regarding that delicate issue of overwork in Jamaican high school athletics — an issue that has been of concern to this newspaper for some time.

Dr Wright, who is an orthopaedic surgeon, speaks of cases where student athletes have been brought to him with sport-related injuries caused by “overuse”. “I see children who are training three/four hours a day, six days a week … It is wrong. We are damaging them,” Dr Wright told this newspaper’s weekly Monday Exchange.

We would suggest also that we don’t need to be medical specialists to see that the period between the recent Champs and the increasingly relevant CARIFTA Games was too short. As expressed by the outspoken Dr Wright: “We take them to four days of Champs and one week later we take them to four days of Carifta and I don’t understand how any parent can do that.”

Obviously, the need is to find the proper balance. For as another highly respected sports professional, coach Mr Michael Clarke, puts it, the underpreparation of an athlete — and, we suppose, underutilisation — could also be construed as abuse.

It seems to us that those with the knowledge and expertise, including doctors, physios, coaches and representatives of ISSA, and perhaps also the Jamaica Amateur Athletics Association, need to sit down and consult.

The bottom line, as we have repeatedly said in this space, is that the health and well-being of the young athlete must come first.