Our sporting challenge

Although the Sports Commission's flagship annual event had all the usual hallmarks associated with this glittering celebration in the island's sports calendar, it also revealed the exasperation gaining real pace among those who champion its value and development.

While the local athletes showcased the impressive level of home-grown elite talent that our Bailiwick can be so rightly proud of, the evening's host revealed how our government's performance record on supporting local sport has so far been left lacking.

In a masterstroke of programming, the event's keynote speaker had been a local legend and cross-Channel swimmer whose personal sporting achievement left those even half his age at the night's event in awe. And his pointing out the inherent bond between sport and health was the perfect scene-setter for the commission's rallying cry for an equally similar fundamental link to be forged between sport and politics.

Despite the evidence from the recent London Olympics of just how much can be achieved with genuine funding and collaboration, Guernsey, it seems, is still failing to grasp just how much sport at all levels can benefit the physical and mental wellbeing of its whole community.

Last year, this newspaper entered the fray to ask similar questions but, as the commission's chairman also pointed out, any calls appear to have not only been met with a 'stony silence', but a funding cut to boot.

What remains unclear is what will happen next. With an election looming, it may well be that more will come forward to pick up the baton, although those intending to land a place on the team through mere lip-service should think again.

A sense of frustration is fast-growing among the island's sporting fraternity, who see that while some are more than happy to align themselves to its sporting achievement and the spin-off of a healthy population, far fewer are willing to step up to the plate and join the fight for hard cash.

The inspirational night could not help but also beg the question of just how many such accolades would have been achieved without the efforts of the commission and the island's army of sports groups, charities, volunteers and private-sector sponsors.