Sports watchers will be delighted at the call by new Minister of Sports Ms Olivia ‘Babsy’ Grange for stakeholders in the sector to “think big” as they go about the continued development of Jamaican sport.

“I am back and ready for the job, and I want all the stakeholders to think big. We can’t be so talented and be constrained by narrow views,” Ms Grange told listeners at the recent launch of the Racers Grand Prix which is being organised by the Racers Track Club.

Thinking big would be in line with the aims and objectives set out by the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) in its election manifesto released just before the February 25 parliamentary election.

In that document, the JLP indicated plans for the building of new sports facilities and the upgrade of existing ones. Plans for sports tourism, and specifically the long-talked about desire to attract sportsmen and women for training during the winter months were again aired.

The JLP also spoke of its ambition to upgrade the quantity and quality of coaches and sporting professionals, and of research aimed at achieving optimal performance.

Of course, the demands on the new Government are many and varied. The sports sector can’t expect to be treated with the kind of priority attention any Government inevitably applies to areas such as health, education and security.

Yet, the value of sport to national development is well recognised and established. This newspaper has every confidence that Ms Grange, who has had previous experience as minister of sport, will carry the fight with might and main.

She will do well to carry on from where the previous People’s National Party (PNP) Government left off. For despite the severe constrains of the International Monetary Fund-mandated economic reform programme, the PNP can proudly boast of considerable infrastructural developments over the last four years.

As then minister with responsibility for sport, Mrs Natalie Neita Headley, recalled last month, infrastructural improvements included a new synthetic track at GC Foster College of Physical Education and Sport in St Catherine, a synthetic track at Calabar High School and major upgrades at 24 high schools. Hockey and netball facilities were also upgraded and there was culmination of a partnership with India to install lights at the headquarters of cricket, Sabina Park.

Mrs Neita Headley also took great pride in the February start-up of a long-overdue athlete insurance plan.

The baton of governance has now being handed over. We say to the new minister of sport and her Government, “Run with it.”