DR Warren Blake, immediate past president of the Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association (JAAA), is once again pleading to the powers that be to appreciate the value of investing in sports.

Dr Blake, a member of the JAAA’s medical staff at the recently concluded 29th Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan, made the plea during an interview with the Jamaica Observer at the end of the Games, during which Jamaica once again punched above its weight class by securing nine medals — four gold, one silver and four bronze — to be among the top nations per capita.

Dr Blake thought that the athletes, through their multiple trips to the podium and the obligatory medal presentation ceremonies, created opportunities for the nation to sell itself to a global audience.

“When we look at the benefits that competing at the Olympics does for the country as a whole, if we were to buy advertisement during the Olympics you are paying US$6 million to US$10 million for a 30-second slot,” he suggested.

“When Jamaica stands on the podium, when the girls’ 4×1 [4x100m relay] team stands on the podium, that’s about three to five minutes of exposure for Jamaica — prime time on the biggest stage on earth. That’s millions of US dollars the track and field team is exposing the Jamaican product to the world, letting people know that there is a country named Jamaica,” noted Dr Blake.

The orthopaedic surgeon, who is a founding member of the Jamaica Association of Sports Medicine, argued that during such occasions the Government benefits, tourism interests benefit. Therefore, rather than offering holidays they could “put some money behind the track and field team so that we can have many more moments on the podium like that, exposing the tourism product even further”.

And Dr Blake is under no illusion that any investment in track and field would be money well spent. “I guarantee you, if some of the money that is spent in tourism is spent on the track and field team, the tourism product would reap the rewards, and that is why I say it is feasible — but people just have to understand the value of sports to the nation and to put their money behind the sport,” he said.

“We say we are a sporting nation, then back it!” he challenged emphatically.

Dr Blake, who has travelled as a member of the JAAA’s medical team to the last five Olympic Games, was quick to point out that his stance is not new and has been posited before, with little impact.

“It has been brought forward and we have tried to show the powers that be the value of investing in sports but when it comes to putting the money where the mouth is, very little money is put behind sports,” he said.

But he is not deterred, especially after Jamaica’s showing in Japan when the women swept the podium places in the 100m final with Elaine Thompson-Herah, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and Shericka Jackson finishing first, second and third, respectively.

“We have to keep pushing the decision-makers and we have some financial people who we see are interested in sports. Supreme Ventures Limited has shown their interest in sports, track and field in particular. They have been one of our biggest sponsors for nearly 15, 20 years and hopefully they will continue. And if they can encourage some other people in the corporate world to help to sponsors us then we can incrementally continue to grow the product,” Dr Blake said.

Meanwhile, Dr Blake believes there needs to be a shift in policy if the country is to take part in more sporting disciplines at the global showpiece.

At the delayed Tokyo Games Jamaica participated in a record six sporting disciplines — track and field athletics, boxing, judo, swimming, diving and gymnastics.

Dr Blake suggested that with the country foremost in mind the sports ministry needs to start identifying individuals with potential and place them in academies where they are trained over time to be competitive on the international scene, similar to what he found when he was invited to South Korea to look at their sports training during a cultural exchange.

“We went to the Korean Olympic Institute where they train future Olympians, and for the Koreans their system ensures that in 2024 that side has already been chosen, by and large. They have identified all the talent that they think will mature in 2024 and they have taken them into the institute and they have started training them.

“When it comes to 2024 they will have a national trials just in case any unexpected talent turns up and can make the national team, but by and large they are training them. Some of the sports are repetitive sports that you have to do over and over; you have to put in the 10,000 hours to become an expert. Things like archery, shooting, they have utilised all the science behind them. They have people who do biomechanics watch them shoot and the biomechanics professor looks at the tapes and say, ‘Okay this is what you are doing wrong, this is what you are not doing right,’ and that is passed on to the coach who now adjusts his training to modify the input and get a different output to improve the athlete to move from a 9.5 to a 10. And that is done over and over again.

“I saw them training their gymnasts and they just do the routine over and over till they could do it in their sleep. They could close their eyes and do floor routines and the bars because the body knows what it is to do.

“Until we have athletes who can go through that level of training and not take it as a part-time thing, we are not going to be able to compete with these people,” reasoned Dr Blake.

And despite the different circumstances and cultures, the goodly doctor is firm in his belief that it can be replicated here.

“If we are serious about it, it’s feasible,” he noted.