By RENALDO DORSETT

Tribune Sports Reporter

rdorsett@tribunemedia.net

BAAA Secretary General Drumeco Archer officially announced his intentions to run for president of the organisation.

Archer said his platform is aimed at bridging the gap between the administration and the athletes to ensure a cohesive system, integral for the development of the sport.

The first initiative of his campaign was to issue a message to all athletes under the BAAA umbrella.

According to Archer, his message to the athletes will be the centre of his team’s focus from which everything that they do will revolve.

“Many of you have heard me screaming and cheering your names over the announcement system. I have spoken with many of you privately about your personal welfare as well as your athletic ambitions.

“And in all of your moments both bright and dark, I have written you privately to tell you that you are the greatest,” Archer said. “I would be the first to confess that we (both athlete and administration) have a long, long way to go before we collectively can say that we have done all that we can to make our sport the best that it can be. With the good Lord’s will, I am determined to see more of you ascend to the podium, make a living from the sport and in exchange make you, your family and our country proud.”

Archer ousted incumbent Carl Oliver 46-36 for secretary general back in 2015 and now seeks the highest office in the organisation.

“To do this, I will need you…all of you to become a part of a mission that I call ‘Operation Goat.’ This mission is to ensure that you are our greatest priority, with a primary focus to create better opportunities for you to maximise your fullest athletic, academic and economic potential,” he said. “I have already appealed to our voting members to support me and I have spoken with prospective partners and stakeholders. But my presidency would mean nothing if didn’t ask that you accept me as your next leader, who will help you transform your lives through the sport that we live and love every day.”

Archer said his team’s campaign is aimed at speaking directly to the voting constituents and creating public awareness to a new approach to how they intend to grow the sport of athletics in a community-driven way.

“There is no one who can convince me that we are not the most talented nation in the world. And it is my conviction that today we have the largest composition of talent ever assembled at any time in our Bahamian history. I believe, without a doubt, that if we work together we can be more powerful than we have ever imagined and more powerful than we have ever realised,” he said. “This quest for greatness cannot be done in isolation. I will need you to be a part of this process. The stories that we share will capture the lives that you live and your tireless work that goes on behind the scenes. We want the country to know you better and we want you to inspire more athletes to be just like you.”