 Top of the Sportsmax zone for this Tuesday, though, the 2023 World Athletic Championships in the Hungarian capital, Budapest, concluded last month amidst a relatively successful campaign by the Jamaica camp, there arose controversy concerning the issue of team selection. That topic may ring a bell, of course, as two-time national champion Taekwendo Tracy took to the media last month to make some damning claims concerning his omission from the 4x100 men's sprint relay pool, citing issues of bias and favoritism as a determining factor. This would spark plenty of conversations around team selections in athletics and how bodies and committees go about handling these decisions. That being said, it's a pleasure to be joined by the media liaison officer of the Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association, Dennis Gordon. Dennis, welcome to the Sportsmax zone, almost a week since your return from Budapest. Glad to have you and congratulations on the fine performance by the Jamaican team overall. But the issue, as you just heard, goes beyond what happened on the track and some disturbing news coming from the sprinter Taekwendo Tracy and what he had to say about the relay pool. Let's start here. He was fifth at the national championship and he's complaining that a player, a competitor who had finished behind him and who wasn't on the team when the initial squad was selected, was placed in the relay pool ahead of him. What's your response to that? Good evening to your viewers. He was a little bit premature in my mind and he went out early and he ran out of the zone, meaning weary lady accusation. There's no responsibility there at all. The men's four by four was four by one was organized by Lennox Graham. How it usually works is that the coach who is given that assignment will do his own assessment, make recommendation to the technical leader. The technical leader have the final say. That's Maurice Wilson. But what he had done is expand that role to include two other senior coaches. So it was never, ever this decision. It was a committee decision. I'm not here to speak ill of Tracy, but just to caution him that he needs to be a little bit more measured and a little bit more factual when making those accusation. Maurice is ill bent on suing him because of reputational damages. I tried to speak to him, ask him to have some dialogue and to see if we can manage it. Whilst there I convene a meeting with Tracy and the management team to get some appreciation for his own view and also to share with him what the facts are. So here are the facts. The first three pass the post as is the J3 selection criteria are mandated by Royal Athletics that they must be in the pool. So you have to submit minimum six and they insist that the first three pass the poll. However, based on the letter of the selection criteria, it is the description of the coaches for the other five because you can go as much as eight as is the US. It doesn't matter whether you are named originally or not because we have seen over time and later would recall that we have used urglars, we have used long jumpers to participate in the relay. So you are in a pool, but it doesn't guarantee you a spot to run. As a matter of fact, you can get a little bit more technical that although you are one, two, three pass the post and you are mandated to be in the clear six, you have no way to clean. It is purely and the discretion of the coaches. Is that satisfactory though going forward? Because I think part of what has triggered a lot of the public outcry is the ruling shows that the coaches may not have done something incorrect or outside of the rules, but should the rules or the selection process be a little bit more transparent and a little more decisive so that in a case like this an athlete doesn't appear to have a strong case because when he put his video out, to be quite honest, the social media response and the public response by what I saw felt very sympathetic to his cause. And you are here to put the facts on the table because a lot of times the public is misled by things that appear a certain way to them, but Dennis Gordon can now clarify some of the issues because I think you are aware that the general public is critical of the selection because of what they are tracing say. Yes, but let us examine the facts. A 65-man team was named at the press conference. There were five additions to that 65. So we actually went with a 70 team. 70 member team. He is accusing the coach of inviting Golsan, so let us get to the meeting. Golsan finished seventh at the championship. And Golsan runs for Maurice Wilson's club? Yes, but I want to separate the issue. I don't want to call it in any way, so let me just put it out there. So he is accusing the technical director of unilaterally bringing in Golsan, which is not true. One, he doesn't have the authority. Two, he could not do it on his own. So let's put that aside. He was not the person in charge of the men's four-by-one. It was Lenox Graham who was doing the men's four-by-one. And there are some factors there. But let us look at the four that run. It is those who finish one, two, three, four. So that's why I started by saying his comment was a little bit premature. The five that Lenox wanted to use, based on seeing them in training, right, was that four plus Golsan. At no time he was told that he's not in the pool of six. He assumed because Golsan's name was in the six that he would not be in the six. I go a little bit further. The team, the confirmed four, was done the night before the event the following day. Because several days ahead of... Tracy was out of the blocks saying all these things prior to that final meeting. What do you think triggered the reaction from Tracy, though? Why did he get this misconception about how the team was selection? My understanding, and this is what I was told by Lenox, that in the first meeting, right, he said that this is the five that I would want to look at. Now the coach can say that, but that is not final until that final panel review and sign off. So he perhaps got a little bit upset that he was not in the preferred five at the time, but in no way shape or form. Was he out of the six? So I don't know what would have precipitated his outburst, but those are the facts. Can I ask, after the video that Tracy posted on social media that literally went viral, what was the reaction like within the camp itself? It didn't have any impact at all. And that is why we quickly huddle and strategize the best way to manage it. And so we called Tracy to a meeting, right? We had discussion with him. We told him what we expected of him and he said his piece and it was seamless thereafter. He was in the camp, he was not penalized, he was not prejudiced with any of the benefits. I went to the stadium with him sometime on the same bus and he was in good spirit. But I think it was more disappointment than anything else. Yeah, he had been some allegations about, like he just alluded to it a while ago, that he was approached by the security and told that he would be removed from the camp. Was there any truth in the allegations? So let's just set the record straight. The coach was doing an interview with your competitor. And he appeared many suddenly in front of the coach during the interview and the coach asked him to remove himself, right? And he stood there and said, well, I'm not moving, I want to listen. So both the interview and the coach moved. The security detail was there and he said to them, if he's going to continue to be like this, I'm going to request that you take his accreditation and send him back to the hotel. At no time, anyone indicated that we're going to take his accreditation and have him thrown out of the village. Dennis, I brought a question here. I mean, these dysfunctional episodes have been happening forever with Jamaica, especially when it goes to from 84, I remember notably the issue over shoes. I think it was between Herman Kenley and some members of the team. Don Quarry. Yeah, it was Don Quarry. And then, of course, there was 2008 when the mandatory camp was being resisted by MVP to know. Is there a way in which the J3s can mitigate the possibility of these eruptions at major championships? Is there something that's not happening that should happen that will prevent these things from happening? Well, I can speak on behalf of the J3. I can only speak in my capacity as the press liaison for that need. But there are recommendations and my recommendation is we should adopt the similar thing as the U.S., where nobody is given a guaranteed place and an early team, and you come to an early training camp and then you take it from there. But the country must also know that there are a lot of variables that goes into the team that goes out there. Remember firstly, the coaches will tell you that they are not paid for relating. They are dear to win medals so they can get paid. The coaches also say I don't want Leighton to run the curve and I don't want Lance to run the back strip. So the coaches on the ground are left with a lot of things to work through, right? Because if a particular coach don't want a particular athlete to run the curve, for whatever reason given, then the coach cannot impose that athlete running the curve. So more often than not, when you see a final four, there's a lot of work going on in the background to ensure that you put the best four at all times. Because we take the country serious and we want to operate at a level, but we have to learn to manage expectation. It is good that you complain that we are not winning gold, but you are still the third best in the world. And that is something that we need to get home to the fans, that the expectation needs to be managed because you are competing against the world. I put out an article in the Japanese media explaining the cost per medal, per capita. And when you compare that to the bigger federations with large budgets and facilities, it is shocking to some as to how we continue to do it. Where we train in Budapest, our stadium is a disgrace to the training camp that we add in Budapest. It had a first-class gym. It is complete with all the amenities that the athletes need to prepare themselves for the event. After our trials in July, nobody knows what is happening to the athletes selected until they actually assemble in camp. They are athletes who came there injured. And the coaches and the athletes will never say that the athlete is hurt and the athlete did not say that I am not well. In addition to that, Tic Bailey, for example, he was a part of the 4x4 warming up and got injured. We literally had to send for Maki Malik who was at the hotel and rushed him down, 40-minute drive, having warm up and ready to go. So he would not have run a blistering leg and then he would criticize. So again, I am saying the coaches understand, I am not technical so I don't interfere, but they understand my own view from where I sit. They have the country at heart and they also respect the athletes and the athletes' preference not to run a particular leg at that particular time. And that is something that we can't manage because it comes down to athlete-coach relationship. Since you are here, let me ask you this because there was some conflict over Elaine Thompson-Hera and her really final appearance because there were reports that she was offered a spot in the 4 and didn't take it. And I saw that rebutted. What really happened there? Because she was scorching in the pre-limbs and because she ran so well down the back stretch, a lot of people felt that Elaine looks as if she is back to close to her best and she would help the Jamaican chances if she runs in the final and she did not. Can you outline to us what that process was? So again, I can't interfere with the selection that is purely to the coach. But what I can do, I can dismiss that she was offered a decline. That did not happen? That did not happen. As a matter of fact, she came to me personally and was livid about it. And um... Lived about what? The statement from the journalist. Okay. And as a matter of fact, I said to her what you should do because it implication for your contract, you should ask the journalist for a retraction. Because here it is, she is a Puma athlete. Puma is there. And then to be told that your athlete, your star athlete refused to run a relay leg. Right? Secondly, there are incentive lines when you win medal or you get the final. So the athletes, they are on their job. It will be fool or they have them to refuse to run when your salary depend on that. So it was a very unfortunate statement by that journalist and I'm sure by now you would have received a letter from from a legal team. And I'm just cautioning journalists to be a little bit more responsible in these pronouncement because it have far reaching impact and these athletes and their sponsors. So again, there's no truth to that. The reason why she did not run, I can't say. Again, Paul Francis was the coach in charge of the women 4x1. It would be a question method directed to him. Yes. Because it was his call. Yes. We understand that Dennis Gordon, media relations officer with the J3As, live on the sports mic zone today, reviewing a lot of what happened at the World Championship as far as Jamaica is concerned, mostly discussing some of the controversial issues that happened off the track in Budapest. He's staying with us for the second segment. We look back after this.