Desarrollo económico y social del Uruguay

In order to understand the extent of the performance of their countries at the London Olympics, the participants were first asked to explain the objectives set by their respective NOCs prior to the London Olympics, in order to set the tune for the discussion on how much of these objectives were achieved and the issues that led to this. Speaking on the objectives set by his NOC for the London, A02 pointed out that;

“…Our main aim was to participate. In London we had 10 athletes participating and 10 officials so the total number of our delegation was 20. When you compare that to the delegation of other countries we were a very small number. So we kept our expectations very simple. We were very motivated after winning our first medal in Beijing so our goal was to be on the medal table again and possibly strive to win more than one medal this time. We didn’t have many athletes so the expectations were not too high. We were also looking forward to learning as much as we could because learning is an important part of our NOC’s philosophy. So primarily we had only three objectives before we went to London – (1) to participate (2) to win and (3) to learn, and of course, to enjoy ourselves in one of the world’s biggest fiestas”.

Providing some insight on how much of these objectives were achieved, A02 noted only two out of the three objectives were met which included participating in the Games and learning from it:

“…To be honest, we were quite disappointed not to have won any medals. We were really looking to push from our achievement in the last Olympics (Beijing) because the zeal was there, but unfortunately we came back with nothing medal wise. These competitions (the Olympics) get tougher and tougher because, the same way you think you want to strive to improve is the same way other countries are thinking and making efforts to also improve. So the bar is always raised in every edition. It feels a bit like we have to start from scratch now and it is really disappointing because, to think that we have been competing in the Olympics for quite some time now and we have only won just one medal, is not good enough…”

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to a number of internal and external factors. The participant stressed that one of the internal concerns was the lack of effective and efficient sport structures in the country. A02 described sports structures as “the institutions that really support the identification and development of sport talents”. This point was elaborated on in the following statements:

“…You don’t just wake up one morning and decide to compete in the Olympics. There has to be some sort of developmental history of one’s talent and to achieve this, you need to have the appropriate institutions in place. In developed countries, you find a lot of sport clubs and academies that encourage the development of young talents. These are the people that eventually end up competing and winning medals at Olympics. We don’t have these sort of institutions in place and even on rare occasions where there are, they are ineffective and not usually properly managed. That’s why you see that the athletes from here often find it difficult competing with other athletes from more developed countries who have had the opportunity to receive more training and support over the years. We usually lack the cutting-edge when competing, and again, I’m almost certain this is also the case with most of the other African countries. We have a lot of young talents in our country with great potential to be Olympic medalists, but we lack the right environment to help them maximize their potential and this makes competing very difficult, especially competing at the highest level (the Olympics). As a result of this (the lack of the right environment), the last two decades or so have seen a massive outflux of young sporting talents from the country in search of greener pastures abroad and this is slowly becoming an issue of great concern. And you see these talents representing other countries and doing very well. The question then becomes; will our performance have been better if we had these people competing for us? I’d say the answer is yes”.

The second challenge as identified by the participant was the issue of inadequate funding. It was noted that the limited funds received by the NOC from the government always made planning for the Olympics very difficult. A02 expressed this in the following words:

“The government funds our participation in Olympics with little or no support coming from elsewhere. This is a big challenge because the financial support from the government is very limited. Without funds, you can’t build standard training facilities or even afford to train the athletes abroad. Sometimes you are even cautious of qualifying too many athletes because you’re not sure if you can prepare them well enough given the resources available, considering the standard of preparation other teams get. There is not a lot done by the private sector. Sponsorship is very limited. We sometimes benefit from IOC projects, but again, this is very limited. The issue of inadequate funding contributes to our poor performance in the Olympics”.

From the above comments, it is clear that the lack of private sector support and sponsorship is another challenge preventing the NOC from maximising its full potential.

The participant also pointed out that the poor standard of training facilities for the athletes was another factor that minimised the performance of the NOC at the London Olympics. A02 further stressed that the country lacked the required sporting infrastructure to meet the standards of what is available in developed countries, which often makes competition against athletes from such countries very difficult. This factor was linked to the issue of insufficient financial power earlier raised by the participant. Furthermore, A02 noted that despite the government’s inability to build new sporting facilities, the existing facilities are not properly maintained. This was expressed in the following statement:

“…We don’t know how to maintain the facilities we have properly. We may not be able to build new stadiums or new swimming pools etc, but how well have we been able to manage and maintain the few ones we have? There are never really any proper legacy arrangements in place when we build these things, and I hold the government accountable for this”.

Another internal issue raised by A02 to be accountable for the country’s poor performance is the issue of corruption and mis-management of funds. The participant pointed this to be a big problem in the country and made the following statement to buttress this point:

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“…Believe it or not, this also accounts for the performance of the athletes when we go on international assignments. The funds are never released to us on time and even when they finally come, we end up getting only a small fraction of what was approved in the budget and published in the newspapers. No accountability whatsoever. In June this year for example, the government decided to suspend grants to sport federations for reasons I believe to be politically instigated, in an attempt to divert these funds for personal use. How can we move forward with this sort of behaviour? So you can see that we are the cause of some of the problems we are having and not until we change our mentality, things are likely to stay the same. Yes we need international support, but if we don’t manage it properly when it comes, of what good is it?”

Speaking on the external challenge faced by the NOC, A02 attributed this to the lack of sponsorship and the limited support received from international organisations and multi-national companies. It was argued that the level of sponsorship received by African countries was very little compared to other developed parts of the world, which was claimed to be unfair, considering the number of good talents Africa has. The participant further maintained that if the country had the same sponsorship opportunities as other countries do, performance would have been better. To support this argument, the following example was given:

“…Take Team GB for example; they are funded solely by the British Olympic Association (BOA), whose main source of revenue is from commercial sponsorship. And when you look at it carefully, you see that the companies sponsoring them (Team GB) are not necessarily British companies…companies such as BMW, Adidas, Nissan and so on. Not to talk of the sponsorship they get from the numerous indigenous companies who are also multinational in their status. And this is the same for most of the other developed countries who are Olympic power blocks today. So you see that with the level of commercial sponsorship countries like these receive, they may not even have need for government support. But with us in Togo and in Africa in general (because these are the issues we talk about in our meetings), the situation is the complete opposite…the government is the main source of

funding while you’ll consider yourself very lucky to benefit from any form of commercial sponsorship”.

In a further argument, A02 made the following comments:

“…To see that some of these multinational companies have their biggest markets in Africa and yet not a lot of sponsorship is coming from them beats my imagination. Believe it or not, having the support and sponsorship of the big brands helps increase the confidence of the NOC and the athletes, and directly or indirectly, this could increase your chances of winning medals. So the issue of poor international sponsorship is a big one for us. It is very limited. Football is a bit better, but we want this to be replicated in other Olympic sports”.

Furthermore, the participants were asked to clarify if the way the Games were organised and managed had anything to do with their poor performance at the Games. Speaking on this, A02 said:

“…I don’t think the way the project was managed affected our performance in any way. It had nothing to do with the hosts. Their job was to host the Olympics and they did that really well. We didn’t suffer any setback in our NOC because of something that was not done right by the hosts”.

When asked if the IOC or any of its decisions affected their performance in any way, A02 responded in the negative, saying that the IOC or its decisions had no direct impact on the NOC’s poor performance in the London Olympics. It was noted from a broader point of view however, that the IOC was not doing enough to give equal opportunities to all NOCs, especially those from less developed countries. In elaborating on this point, A02 revealed that Olympic Solidarity, which is an initiative by the IOC to support poorer NOCs in enhancing sports development in their countries, had not benefited them. The participant pointed out that the Olympic Solidarity initiative to assist NOCs in need was flawed due to the following unanswered questions:

“…who decides what countries need such assistance? What is the level of assistance that is given…is it enough to make such countries compete and win

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medals on the bigger stage? Has anything really changed? As long as these questions are unanswered, then nothing different has happened”.

Furthermore, A02 argued that the decentralisation process of this assistance by the IOC to continental associations had not helped to remedy the situation. When asked to clarify on this point, the participant made the following comment:

“The purpose of decentralising the process is to give freedom to the continental associations, in our case ANOCA, to decide how to allocate these resources according to the particular needs of the NOCs which is a good idea. But this is not often the case. These resources, left in the hands of the continental association (ANOCA), are not evenly distributed among countries that need them. There is a lot of politics and corruption that go with it. So perhaps, I think the IOC should reconsider this or at least ensure that it is the countries that have the greatest needs that actually benefit from these aids”.