COMMENTARY BY AUBREY CAMPBELL: “IT’S A FULL MONTH OF HOLIDAY FOR JAMAICA AND JAMAICANS!

A mid Summer night’s dream; of who is the richest politician in Jamaica, ever; of gunshots sounding like reggae rhythms at dinner outside the team training camp in Rio; of more death and destruction on the highways and speedways; of passing the mental fitness test necessary to be the POTUS; and of cricket’s red hot, leading lady. Oh boy, and isn’t she gorgeous? She was on full display for Florida and the world to see, this past weekend!

Switching gears, folks, take it from me. Anything that is worth waiting for, for four long years, better be damn good. Read my lips, silly!

I’m talking sports here and the summer Olympic Games which opens in Rio de Janeiro, this weekend and what a showpiece it promises to be. Technology has advanced to the stage where, you can be here, there, anywhere you want to be, in Rio and around Brazil for the multiplicity of events to be contested over a three week period.

And starting today, it will be a full month of holiday for Jamaica and Jamaicans. I cannot speak for anybody, anywhere else. Today, August 1, is Emancipation Day, a national holiday, gazetted and set. August 6 – call it August Monday, for the sake of this conversation – is Independence Day. Done, no argument there!

Now, because August 6, falls on a Saturday, it will be a whole weekend of celebration, starting Friday, straight back to Monday, what you call a long holiday weekend! Remember now, the opening ceremony of the Olympics is Friday, part of the spectacle not to be missed if you are a breathing, living humanoid!

Jamaica is not only taking part in the 9-day wonderment that is track & field athletics. There is swimming, diving, gymnastics and something else, which I did not have time to research. But you get my drift, there will be no sleeping on brand Jamaica in Brazil!

Jamaica is more than a one burner sport at the Olympics. You will soon see us parading again in Boxing, bcuz we are bad; Equestrian, because we are among the best, bare back, rhythm riders; Beach Volleyball, because our women are among the sexiest in bikinis; and Netball – we are in the top four, not just in the world but globally! Soccer! Don’t know what to say here. Our boys, they don’t have the rhythm of a Neymar, Messi, CR7, Pogba and they are always being out-played, even though in their Zika impacted cranium, they think they are the good, better and best ‘playaz’!

Are you with me..?

Folks, to come back to a serious conversation. News that gunshots were being echoed in earshot of the team’s training facility, days before opening ceremony, is disturbing. Despite the disquiet of the socio-political dissonance, we are told that security of the games and the athletes will not be compromised.

I just hope that the security forces get it right over the next three weeks. It took the athletes four years! The only kind of repeats and ‘three-peats’ I want to see in Rio, are the likes of Usain St. Leo Bolt, Kirani James, ShellyAnn Frazer Pryce, Bahamas, Trinidad & Tobago, Cuba, striding atop the presentation podium, in those golden moments that will live on in infamy, the way legends do.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), have done their best to prepare for these games, going as far as to put some bite in their bark about zero tolerance for cheaters and pointing the dirty finger at Russia! Hopefully, the message will resonate.

Competing at the Olympic games is not about just being ‘clear’, it’s about being clean!

Ladies and gentlemen, conversants. Dreams are what they are, and for us to dream, we have to be proactive and protect the real world in which we live. It starts with us!

Good to see, first hand that Florida passed the ‘Test’ on the weekend though the same cannot be said for Kingston. That lady in red, who shone like a diamond from head to toe, all weekend long, continues to be the talk of the town. Those who were seeing her for the first time, were stunned!

Congratulations to the top four teams; Tallawahs (Jamaica); Amazon Warriors (Guyana); Trinidad & Tobago Knight Riders and St. Lucia Zouks, moving on to Basseterre St. Kitts/Nevis, for the season 4 play-offs, starting on Wednesday, August 3.

Folks, wherever you are, take a moment to send up a prayer for Jamaica as they are doing in the UK today and the USA/Canada, on Wednesday. Yesterday, thousands did it, in Half Way Tree Square, Kingston.

To God be all the glory and praise!

That’s today’s conversation. You have the last word. Share your thoughts!