Opportunity over outcome - St Jago’s Goburn grateful for Champs second-place finish after almost quitting because of COVID-19 toll

While pleased at the second-place finish at the recently concluded ISSA/GraceKennedy Boys and Girls' Championships, St Jago High School girls head coach Keilando Goburn said that he was more satisfied at being able to push beyond their limits after a difficult road to the championships.

This year, St Jago finished runners up to Edwin Allen High, who secured their seventh consecutive hold on the girls' title. Having tallied 207 points in 2019, they finished with 309.50 this year, 30.5 points behind the champions. In the build-up and throughout the competition, Goburn has focused not on the end result but on the opportunity that the girls were given to compete when the Government gave the approval for Champs to take place. It was an opportunity that he thought he wouldn't get to oversee when the restrictions took a toll on him late last year.

"Due to COVID-19, we lost nine girls last year. Those girls moved on to colleges overseas and then came 2021 and then everything started to go haywire. Parents didn't want to give the approval for their children to come to training," Goburn told STAR Sports. "Even in December, I almost quit. If it wasn't for my assistant coaches, I would call it (quit) because at the time it wasn't making sense for me."

Even when track and field resumed in late February, the weekend lockdowns in April seemingly put their preparations back to square one. However, he said that the team was determined to make the most of the opportunity that they were given.

Rich in quality

"God is good and we decided to push. It was a small team but rich in quality and we just decided that we would go out there and fight and it paid off," Goburn said. "They wanted to prove to the Government and the state agencies that they made the right choice in terms of giving the green light for Champs and we are extremely grateful for that opportunity."

While St Jago had gold medal performances from junior athletes such as Class Two shot put champion Jamora Alves, javelin champion Latavia Galloway as well as Class One high jump and long jump champion Shantae Foreman, Goburn said that the 4x100m Class One relay gold was his most satisfying triumph given that they never had all their members available.

"I don't think we have had an entire training session with the full team. Every day somebody was missing or two persons were missing. We have never had the entire team in the same space to train or to do some practice." Goburn said. "That is why that one run was super special because of the struggles that we went through."

Having seized their opportunity, Goburn hopes that the conditions improve to have some semblance of a normal routine for next year as he believes that operating under similar conditions would be too difficult to overcome a second time.