CONGRATULATIONS TO the New Zealand netball team for defeating Australia to win the gold medal at the Cable and Wireless Championships held at the new National Indoor Sports Centre in Kingston, and a hearty "well played" to the Jamaican Sunshine Girls, who placed third in the competition to capture the bronze medal.
The standard of world netball is now very high, so moving from fourth place to third place in the world ranking is a significant achievement for the Jamaican team. The overall championship was an exciting and crowd-pleasing affair and we are sure that the Jamaica Netball Association is looking forward to the next encounter in four years.
In 1981 in Boston, James Naismith, a Canadian, invented an indoor ball game for the YMCA which was designed to reduce athletic injuries, the theory being that if a ball had to be dropped into the "goal", it couldn't be thrown with excessive speed. Thus was born Basketball, now vastly popular in the United States and around the world, the women's version of which became known as Netball.
Netball was played for the first time in England in 1895 at Madam Osterberg's PT College and since then has found its greatest acceptance among British Commonwealth nations. But it was not until 1960 that the rules were standardised at a meeting in Sri Lanka to which the West Indies sent representatives. In 1995, netball became a recognised Olympic sport and may soon be granted programme status.
aIt has always been popular in the Caribbean. In 1972 at a West Indies Netball Tournament in St. Kitts, Nevis was beaten by Trinidad and Tobago by 117 goals to NIL an exercise in character-building and an unbroken record worthy of inclusion in the Guinness Book of Records.
Since its inception and with several important corporate sponsorships, netball has been well organised in Jamaica. With our present world ranking, the attraction of new fans to the game as a result of media exposure and the availability of modern, indoor facilities there is every reason to expect the sport to grow from strength to strength.
Thanks to the organisational skills of the people who sponsored and planned the just-ended competition, the coaches and administrators of the sport in Jamaica, the sheer zest of the players from the 24 countries which took part and the support of the fans, netball in Jamaica shows every sign of becoming a part of our national life.
THE OPINIONS ON THIS PAGE, EXCEPT FOR THE ABOVE, DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE GLEANER.
