The honour is conferred on the President every year to extend a welcome to the Barbados Olympic Association’s Annual Awards Ceremony. I do so on behalf of the Board, Management and Staff, and it is not an honour I take lightly, as we at the BOA are very aware of the remarkable dedication and commitment of those we honour tonight. Indeed, the BOA exists to serve our Athletes whose sporting achievements we are here to celebrate.

Your Excellency, the Most Honourable Dame Sandra, our beloved President; our dear friend, the Honourable Minister of Sport; other distinguished Guests, it is my honour to welcome you to our first in person Awards Ceremony since the Pandemic.

I wish to recognise specially the presence of Shelly-Ann Hee Chung, General Manager of IGT Antilles Lotteries. IGT, as the operator of Barbados Lotteries, has been a long-standing supporter and sponsor of the BOA. It is true to say that without them, much of what we do would not be possible. I acknowledge your significant role as a major sponsor of tonight’s Ceremony and thank you for your belief in what we do.

I also want to acknowledge the presence of Michael Simmons, the first Secretary General of the BOA, as well as the members of the Barbados Team to the 1962 Central American and Caribbean Games held in Kingston, Jamaica, some 60 years ago, and whom we have the honour of recognizing tonight.

To all the other Awardees, we welcome you warmly as we say thank you for making Barbados proud.

We are here to celebrate the excellence and success for which every Athlete strives, but while we acknowledge and celebrate outstanding performances tonight, we must remember that Sport is, in my own words, More Than Just Sport.

Sport is increasingly being acknowledged as one of the key pillars of socio-economic development. It is a unique tool that is at the service of humankind to achieve a better society. Many of the important issues facing our society today are issues that either affect Sport directly, or are issues to which Sport can contribute, thereby strengthening its role in society.

And so, it is not surprising that the focus on the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is equally relevant to Sport as it is to other areas of endeavour. My call tonight is for participants in Sport to reflect on how Sport can be an enabler for the achievement of the seventeen UN Sustainable Development Goals designed to secure the future of our people and our planet.

We have a role to play in achieving these goals and advancing social progress by contributing to the development of peace and non-violence by promoting tolerance and the Olympic values of friendship, excellence and respect.

We have a role to play in communities and schools in the areas of health and well-being and education where Sport has tremendous impact:

Movement and physical literacy are the foundation of Sport and a driver of physical fitness.

Sport instills healthy lifestyle choices among children and young people, helping them to be conscious of nutrition and to remain active to combat non communicable diseases.

The positive effect of physical exercise on mental health is also well documented, as we, at the same time, recognize that the mental health of our elite Athletes is as important as their physical well-being.

Equally, we have a role to play in Sport in promoting sustainability and sustainable communities by, among other things, reducing our use of plastics and promoting responsible consumption and recycling practices. Globally, sporting activity consumes water in millions of plastic bottles; we also use a lot of plastics in our sporting equipment and facilities. Although we in Barbados have a small environmental footprint and little control over what is available for consumption, we can still play our part by sensitizing our stakeholders to the need to reduce the use of plastics and to recycle.

The UN has also published the UN Sport for Climate Action Framework which provides a roadmap for how National Olympic Committees such as the BOA and other sport organizations can play a role in climate action and climate change. Our Prime Minister has articulated very eloquently on the world stage the urgent action needed around climate change. We in Sport have a duty to educate ourselves on how we can collaborate to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and promote a low carbon sport economy by implementing sustainable practices in the race to net zero.

But our role goes further than the SGDs. We have a duty to protect and safeguard those in Sport especially those who are vulnerable by virtue of the power dynamics in various sporting relationships. This year the BOA approved a Safeguarding Policy and Procedures designed, when fully rolled out, to assist National Federations in protecting their Athletes from harassment and abuse in Sport. The Director of our National Olympic Academy, Vaneisha Cadogan, is the BOA Safeguarding Officer, and is currently undergoing training by the International Olympic Committee in Safeguarding. Her role is to educate and sensitize participants in Sport about safeguarding and provide support as required. Our Senior Administrative Officer with responsibility for Major Games, Gail Craig-Archer, and General Manager, Glyne Clarke, have been named as Safeguarding Focal Point Officers, and will act as primary points of contact for reporting incidents of harassment and abuse in Sport.

We must, also, ramp up our education around ethical behaviour, integrity and fair play in Sport. We have approved a policy on the Prevention of Manipulation of Competition, and Kendia Brathwaite, Program Officer in the Olympic Academy, is our Single Point of Contact in this area. We must be conscious that sports betting poses a potential risk to Athletes to engage in match fixing, spot fixing and otherwise manipulating the outcomes of competition, all of which run counter to fair play and the essential tenets of Olympism.

Your Excellency, I dare say I have merely touched the surface of these topics as time does not permit me to expand on the many sub-themes underlying More Than Just Sport, but suffice it to say that as we look forward to 2023, my simple message is that the Barbados Sports community must think more deeply about the critical role of Sport outside of mere preparation for competition, so that we can leverage the truly transformative power of Sport into the future.

And speaking of the future, we have another busy year ahead of us in 2023 with four multi-sport Games:

• The Central American and Caribbean Games in El Salvador, with some events such as Equestrian and Hockey being hosted in the Dominican Republic.
• The Commonwealth Youth Games with events shared between Trinidad and Tobago;
• The Association of National Olympic Committees Beach Games in Bali, Indonesia; and
• The Panam Games in Santiago, Chile.

We look forward to these Games with great anticipation, coming as they do on the heels of what must be one of our most successful years to date at:

• the inaugural Caribbean Games, Guadeloupe 2022,
• the Commonwealth Games, Birmingham 2022, and
• the inaugural Central American and Caribbean Games Beach and Sea Games, Santa Marta 2022.

Across these three Games, Barbados had thirteen podium finishes in six sports, coming away with one record-breaking gold medal performance which we will never forget, and eight silver and four bronze medals.

Many of these Athletes, excluding those not at liberty to take cash because of college scholarship commitments, have benefitted from our medal incentive programme. The results across the three Games were impressive:

• six medals in Athletics;
• two medals in Swimming;
• two medals in Surfing;
• one medal in Netball;
• one medal in Wrestling; and
• one medal in Rugby.

In addition, Athletes from some of our affiliated National Federations made the podium or had other successes in their own international and continental competitions in Athletics, Motoring, Squash, Cycling, Shooting, Chess, Wrestling and Rowing, to name a few. They are also to be congratulated.

In closing, it just remains for me to say enjoy the rest of the evening and accept our best wishes for a Happy Christmas and good health in the new year, as we reminisce on 2022 with video highlights of some truly memorable performances!!

• Welcome by President Sandra Osborne, BOA