Dear Sir,

This is a response to Adrian Robson's June 10, 2005 Friday Forum.

To The Royal Gazette's enormous credit, they have recently given the Bermuda Track and Field Association some fair press with editorials highlighting their athletes performances.

Since the early 1980s, the BTFA have been the subject of unfair attacks from The Royal Gazette Sports Deparment and some road race oriented sports columnist.

No other association has had to endure the abusive reporting the BTFA has had since Robson has been employed locally.

This has happened primarily because he considers himself a road runner and he and others of his persuasion believe road racing is not given the accolades track and field is given locally.

In spite of the fact that the association has had various executives over the years with little participation from those affiliates from his club that do road racing.

His department's one-sided negative reporting leading up to events such as Carifta Games and CAC Cross Country were all met with major event successes which were hailed as the best championships of their kind by the region ever.

Yet he continues to deem them bad organisers etc.

This is why many BTFA supporters have avoided the Gazette because it seems as though they don't report track and field news without taking sides or unless it is a story against the association.

Many times BTFA executives were never called to defend themselves. This has been the cycle for years. You can't help being suspicious because nothing is printed without the Sports Editor's approval.

Robson knows good Press improves a sport.

Externally the Press has not helped us. In spite of this the BTFA have had major success hosting events like Race Weekend and internally are in the best financial position they have ever been in.

Robson will eventually find negatives because he still has a calculated plan to bring down the sport as long as people he dislikes personally are involved.

He had a perfect opportunity to be a good ambassador for his sport and appeal to businesses for sponsorship for Race Weekend on Nick Jones' sports show, instead he chose to imply that potential sponsors will avoid us because of our record. which he helps to dampen.

Is this the role of a Sports Editor? It's obvious he personally dislikes some BTFA officials, and the National Track & Field coach who has produced numerous Olympic athletes, University scholarship athletes, Carifta champions, PR performers and recent world junior qualifiers.

Based on past attempts by some of his clan, we all know ultimately he would like to see a separate governing body for road racing.

The IAAF World Governing Body won't allow this so obviously he's gone beyond the usual Gazette tactic of sensationalising in order to sell newspapers by attempting to find ways to distance us all by attempting to show us the association is too incompetent to support road runners.

He especially displays this in his Friday Forums where he attacks the BTFA most of the time even though his claims are false.

A great example of this is in his recent June 10, 2005 Forum where he claims that the BTFA had no 3000, 5000, or 10,000 metre runs on their recent National Championships programme to offer distance or road runners.

This is totally false demonstrating his usual antics to discredit the association showing once more his lack of professionalism as an editor.

I and others presently coach many young and open distance runners to help contribute to the sport.

I take exception to Robson's ruthless attacks on those that did their best in spite of not having competition in the Championships.

Where is the athletes he is coaching? Could he win a medal with competition? What about the fact that you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.

Did it ever occur to him for reasons beyond the BTFA's control athletes leave the sport or cannot attend that weekend.

Sometimes lack of funding, parents decisions, upbringing, religion, hating the hard training, negative media reports, being good in other sports etc., effects potential athletes decisions.

Sometimes other sports like triathlon, cycling, swimming, soccer etc., which attract track people - they sometimes also have conflicting schedules. Many associations have observed the same problems with T&F pulling away some of their athletes.

Why criticise those who valued being National Champions?

According to an e-mail I witnessed it did not help that your club had a drinking social the Thursday before the National Championship.

I'm sure schedule or not many in the MAACC intended on a no show.

On top of this they invited Swans Running Club to join them.

Tracy Wright did enter the 10,000 and Jay Donawa and Kavin Smith were injured, so if we believe Robson the other people he refers to don't value becoming a National Champion or are more interested in BTFA, RG politics than competing for the betterment of the sport or themselves.

It is also time the Press stop lying to the public.

The truth is, even in T&F's golden years of the 70s and 80s I and many others were either juniors or seniors competing alone or against each other. The sport was never as diverse in age groups as it is today which also includes juniors to masters athletes.

There was a group of us that trained with the national programme only.

Today we have an additional three affiliated track clubs plus one unaffiliated track club.

The longer 5000 and 10,000 races had competitors from the national programme, Swans and MAAC who couldn't care less about the politics or what the BTFA gave us.

We just competed to add track to our programme to be better athletes. This is why we were better than the distance runners today. It wasn't until sports reporters and columnist who preferred road running only like Robson came along that the longer track distances influenced by negative press fell off.

Other groups who have potential to be involved in the sport in a positive way like the Mid Island Striders end up being used like pawns by the Press lead by Robson.

They end up wasting a lot of time creating negative news stories rather than simply abiding by association rules.

He and some others do this in spite of the fact it pulls some away from the sport and than they attempt to blame the association for having low numbers at track meets.

Flyer's Track Club went through the same process as Strider's and were initially rejected until they had their paperwork in order.

They never ran to the Press like spoiled children or allowed themselves to be used. Instead they put their energy into complying with all the BTFA rules to be affiliated.

What type of affiliate are you going to be if you, like Robson, can't deal with the proper democratic process for change.

When other associations have rules and discipline their athletes Robson supports them. Why not the same for the BTFA?

Furthermore many believe it is to Robson's advantage to instigate the fight between the MIS and the BTFA to help fight his cause.

I often write rebuttals because I have always maintained the idea that the BTFA should always defend or present itself.

An opinion BTFA president Judy Simmons and National Coach Gerry Swan share with me, however many of us don't always have the time to deal with the Press or every dilemma.

Thus the appointment of well versed new BTFA director and PR man Stanley Williams and appointing some affiliated members to deal with and help the Striders.

We all must support the BTFA who ultimately will develop some of our youngsters to be productive citizens. Remember the BTFA is a non-profit charity and directors volunteer their time - they are not always perfect in their job, neither is the Press and they get paid.

Now that Adrian Robson has admitted the sport is headed in the right direction lets see if the Press is willing to let the BTFA climb the mountain he speaks of.

Because remember their sports reporting still has a long way to go.

MIKE WATSON

Sports Editor's note: It's difficult to respond to a letter of this length with so many inaccuracies. It would simply take too long to separate the fact from fiction.

But for the record, I am not an active member of the road running club, MAAC, haven't served in any capacity for some 20 years and have very little contact with their members.

I certainly have no agenda to discredit the BTFA. Any criticism that has appeared in the Friday Forum column has been based on the BTFA's track record and information from a number of athletes from a wide variety of clubs.

As for the recent senior national track and field championships, it is fact that blue riband events such as the men's 100 metres attracted two runners and the 1500 metres one runner.

No senior event contained more than four entrants.

Most had just one or two. Such pitiful lack of participation can hardly be blamed on the Press. Watson claims there were 3,000, 5,000 and 10,000 metre races, but for some reason no results were submitted for these events while they were for every other event.

Who do we believe?It is absolutely true that the appointment of Stanley Williams as a director, after Watson reportedly stepped down, has resulted in the BTFA raising its profile. But that's probably just coincidence!