Marva Bernard Says Region Should Emulate Sunshine Girls
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The AN President Urged Sports Federations to Invest in Sports Development Programmes just like Netball Jamaica
President of Americas Netball (AN), Marva Bernard, has come out to praise Sunshine Girls’ performance after they won silver in the Commonwealth Games. She described this win as a huge advancement for the region. She is therefore advocating for other Caribbean countries to emulate the Jamaican team.
The Sunshine Girls are currently in fourth place in the world standings. They reached the international finals for the first time ever after defeating New Zealand on Friday in the semi-finals. Unfortunately, they lost 55-51 to Australia in the final match on Sunday.
Bernard, former president of Netball Jamaica from 2006 to 2015, said that she was pleased with Jamaica’s performance as it shows that the country has developed in the sport. Moreover, Bernard revealed that Jamaica was ranked second at the Commonwealth Games held in Birmingham. Jamaica won bronze in 2002, 2014 and 2018 before levelling-up to the silver medal in 2022 thus proving the development of the sport in the country.
The AN president explained that Netball Jamaica had greatly invested in the development programmes throughout the years and the success was finally being reaped. This was done by getting good coaches from performing nations globally to coach their local coaches which was made possible by the downtime caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. This was however not new to Jamaica since the country has outsourced coaches for a long time. The imported coaches have to be certified and trained in the field. She advised other countries to focus on investing in the long-term future.
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