President of the North America Central America and Caribbean Athletic Association (NACAC) Jamaican Neville “Teddy” Mc Cook has offered to assist the road racing committee of Team Athletics SVG.{{more}}

McCook, who was the keynote speaker at Team Athletics SVG’s (TASVG) Awards Ceremony on Saturday, December 12, at the Rush Bar in Kingstown, picked up on TASVG Road Racing Committee’s Chairman Leroy Llewellyn’s reports of this year’s road races.

The Jamaican advised TASVG that instead of having different races and on each occasion having a different winner, they should instead come up with a plan to have the races in a series. He assured TASVG that NACAC would assist financially.

Asked by SEARCHLIGHT to go into more detail, Mc Cook said that what he was advising the Road Racing Committee to do was to have an overall winner.

“I am advising them to do so as athletes will be required to run on different courses,” Mc Cook stated.

“Here the athletes will earn points from each race, then there will be a final event to establish the St. Vincent and the Grenadines Road Racing Champion,” Mc Cook, the IAAF representative in the region, said.

“They can pool the 30 to 40 best road runners, which will be a good platform, and they can invite other road runners from the region to take part in this big event,” he continued.

Mc Cook said that with such a race in place, he, in his capacity as NACAC President, will match the local funds garnered from corporate sponsorship for this major event.

Mc Cook made the offer even though the NACAC budget will be cut by thirty percent next year.

He, however, was optimistic that funds will be forth coming.

Mc Cook, who beat current TASVG president Vincentian Keith Joseph to the regional post in 2007, in reflecting on his tenure thus far, said that he is not satisfied with the area in which he is strongest.

“I am not satisfied that I have done enough to get more sponsorship for the region”, Mc Cook frankly stated.

But he was, however, pleased that under his watch the annual Junior Carifta Games has been able to get a major financial commitment from telecommunications provider, LIME.

Mc Cook was the second high profile athletics official to be the feature speaker at Team Athletics SVG’s Awards Ceremony.

At the 2008 ceremony, which was staged in January of this year, the guest of honour and feature speaker was former 400m hurdler and Olympian, IAAF Vice-President, Amadeo Francis.(RT)