Right now, since Beijing last year, and now Berlin, Jamaica's sprinters are the best in the world, and hopefully, speaking as a Jamaican, they will remain so for a long time.

If Jamaicans are not careful, however, if they do not stop, look, and check it out, if they do not learn from what has happened in West Indies cricket, the days of winning gold medals at both the Olympics Games and the World Championships, will be numbered.

To many, it is not that West Indies cricket no longer possesses talent. To them, it is simply because of poor administrators, and right now, the administrators in track and field, the members of the Jamaica Amateur Athletic Association (JAAA), are also being labelled as poor - as people who hinder rather than people who help.

Although some of them in cricket, track and field, and in other sports, are really poor and guilty of posturing more than anything else, I cannot put all the blame on the administrators, for the simple reason that I know many of them - the majority of them.

Apart from the fact that I know that they, too, were once involved in sport as participants, I know that they know sport. I know that they love sport. I know that they have sacrificed for sport. I know that they given of their time and their money to sport, and contrary to what some may believe, I know that they, too, enjoy whenever Jamaica wins and that they are proud to see the black, green, and gold fluttering in the air, and to hear the national anthem echoing around the stadium.

athletics well served

While there are many people in cricket's administration, in the West Indies and in Jamaica, who should be somewhere else twiddling their thumbs, no one can tell me that athletics in Jamaica, despite a few, weak compromises here and there, is not well served, not only by people like Teddy McCook, Howard Aris, Ludlow Watts, and Dr Winston Dawes, but also by the likes of Grace Jackson, Cathy Rattray, Vilma Charlton, Don Quarrie, Bertland Cameron, Trevor Campbell, Juliet Cuthbert, and Neville Myton.

As Norman Peart, manager of Usain Bolt, said recently while referring to the JAAA, "those guys know their stuff".

To me, part of the problem with West Indies cricket and Jamaica athletics, is that some of the players and some of the athletes, having achieved, having become great, and urged on by their friends who have always believed that the administrators control the dough and kept most of it for themselves, have started to flex their muscles - to make demands, some of them reasonable, some of them totally unreasonable.

The cricketers and the track and field stars, however, need to understand that unlike the days gone by when the privilege to administer, to rule, was reserved for a few, today, the people who administer are from the same stock as they are, and that although some of them, as it is wherever three or four, five or six are gathered, are involved for their own selfish reasons, the majority of them are there to contribute to the development of the sport they once played and still love.

On top of that is their love for their country.

A leader, however, is one who, obviously, leads. Because of that, he is important in the general scheme of things, especially so in the life of the athlete. Leaders in sport, in the West Indies and in Jamaica, must understand that. If they do, they should change their style.

The leaders of today have to change the way things are done, for the simple reason that things have changed over the years - some, admittedly, for the worse, but more for the better.

In days gone by, for example, a sportsman or a sportswoman was generally poor. Usually he was led by a rich man, he was told what to do and what not to do, and he accepted it - probably because as a poor amateur, and as great as he may have been, he was dependent on those who led. He realised, for example, where his bread was buttered.

Today, however, that is not so - far from it.

As my friend Ryland Campbell remarked a few days ago, today the athlete is a professional, he earns money, sometimes a lot of it, and not only is he independent, he is also, most times, richer than his national association's president.

The pressure on the administrator is harder today than it ever was. The athlete is paying himself, and therefore, more so in an individual sport like track and field, he does, or tries to do, what he believes is right for his own performance.

administration difficult

On top of that, he has a coach and a manager. Both get paid based on his performance. Both will be mostly, if not only, concerned about his earnings and, therefore, his performance. They, together, will not only defend their athlete, but will also fight for their athlete's right to do what he wants to do in preparation and in competition.

The life of an administrator today is difficult, as someone who is elected and but for an allowance here and there, is not paid. He is an amateur leading professionals, and obviously that can be and must be uncomfortable, if not embarrassing at times.

Something is wrong with cricket in the West Indies, something is wrong with track and field in Jamaica, and to me, the blame must be shared between those who play and those who administer, sometimes even by those who cheer - those who defend the athletes, who they see as one of them, every time, and who, also every time, criticise the administrator who they see, because of the past, as not one of them.

The problem, however, is not insurmountable, and in the interest of Jamaica, both parties, the athletes and the administrators, must look at themselves.

As the leaders, however, the administrators must lead the way. It seems that what is needed is a guideline. It should be a guideline that is put together by those who participate and those who administer, and instead of being weak and ineffective, as they sometimes are, as they most times are, instead of coming up with a compromise as they so often do, the administrators should then act in the interest of the sport and the country whenever those guidelines are not followed.

Once guidelines are in place, once the action for not following them is consistent, is fair and without favour, there would hardly be a problem.

Jamaica and the West Indies in general, probably because of a history of influence by the strong in the society, is plagued by grandstanding by performers, and maybe, just maybe, that was the problem with the women's 4x100 metres relay team.

The leadership of the JAAA in Berlin was weak and unprofessional, no question about that. That was probably the reason why Veronica Campbell-Brown was not told until just before the race that she could not run the anchor leg. And the reason why she was told that she could not do so probably had nothing to do with injury to either Shelly-Ann Fraser or Kerron Stewart.

nothing to do with injury

It probably also had nothing to do with any injury to Campbell-Brown, or to the fact that after practising for the anchor leg at the camp to which others did not attend, she did not know of a change until late in the day.

It may have been, probably and in the eyes of Fraser and Stewart, simply that Campbell-Brown was no longer number one, that her time of getting what she wanted because she was number one had passed, that the stars were Fraser and Stewart, and in their opinion, it was now their time to flex their muscles - to get, like others before them when they were number one, what they wanted, to run where they wanted to, or else.

The JAAA was weak in not informing her earlier of the change, but Campbell-Brown probably did not run because she did not understand how things are run in Jamaica, and in the West Indies.

Either that, or Campbell-Brown did not realise that things had changed and that, as great as she was, still is, and forever will be because of her past deeds, she no longer had the power to call the shots.