How shameful it is that the International Association of Athletics Federations had to intervene to clean up the mess that our power-crazed ego-trippers made in Berlin!

Are Howard Aris, Stephen Francis and the other demigods of the Jamaica Amateur Athletic Association and the MVP Track Club unaware of the importance of track and field athletics to Jamaica? Of the joy that Shelly-Ann Fraser brought to the world with her child-like celebration of victory in Beijing? Of the social significance of two young women from Waterhouse and lower Maxfield Avenue beating the rest of the world? Of the self-esteem and patriotic fervour that the stellar per-formances of our athletes have engendered in the Jamaican nation for more than six decades? Of our moral obligation to our hosts and the governing body of the sport to send our best to represent us?

Why must we suffer such world-famous embarrassment so fre-quently on the eve of global championships because these unsophisticated men insist on locking horns to show who is the don?

A track and field athletics championship is about athletes, nations and patriotic pride. It is not about national and club officials and their petty squabbles.

I am, etc.,

Louis Marriott

Kingston 8