Dear Editor,

A few months ago when I saw the small, frail, stooped figure of Mr William ‘Youngster’ Goldsmith slowly ambling along in the Liguanea Mall, I reflected on the profound impact for good that he has had on the development of Jamaica’s premier sport — track and field athletics.

At that time too, I remembered feeling somewhat sad upon realising that, perhaps, no one else who saw him had even an inkling that he is, in large part, responsible for the great joy we Jamaicans experience from the successes of our track and field athletes.

Mr Goldsmith, a former Jamaica weightlifting champion, was appointed weight training instructor at Kingston College (KC) at a time (1961) when conventional wisdom held that weight training would make track athletes “muscle bound” and therefore sluggish. His appointment was the first such in any high school, making him the pioneer.

KC won the Boys’ Champs for 14 consecutive years, beginning in 1962, just one year after his appointment. KC athletes were simply stronger, faster.

In 1964, three years into the programme, three athletes (Rupert Hoilette — still a schoolboy, Lindy Headley, and myself) all products of ‘Mr G’, as he was affectionately called, were among the small contingent of the 12 male athletes who competed in the Tokyo Olympics — three out 12 or 25 per cent.

Mr G’s profound impact on the development of the sport of track and field in Jamaica stems from the fact that his successes at KC were instrumental in driving other schools to follow suit, resulting over time in the propagation of weight training programmes across the length and breadth of the country.

Today, it is virtually impossible to be an Olympic or world champion in the sprints without years of weight training, starting from school days.

Unbeknown to superstars like Usain Bolt and Veronica Campbell-Brown, they owe a debt of gratitude to Mr G, whom they have probably never met.

Today, weight training is taken for granted, but the older heads remember that it didn’t always exist.

The young in the sport should know that it was started 52 years ago, by a man who on Sunday will be laid to rest — a true giant of the track and field fraternity — Mr ‘Youngster’ Goldsmith.

May his soul rest in peace.

Dr Patrick D Robinson

Olympian

pdougrobins@gmail.com

William ‘Youngster’ Goldsmith