Review by: Artley F. Edwards, Adjunct Professor, Cleveland State University. Cleveland, Ohio, USA.
“Going For Gold” is an up-to-the-minute, play-by-play, behind-the-scenes triumphant staging of the World Junior Championships in Athletics held in Kingston, Jamaica, July 2002.
In just 84 pages of print and well-positioned photographs, Royale Davis manages to capture the essence of the World Junior Championships, the third most prestigious event on the calendar of the International Association of Athletic Federations (IAAF) in true Jamaican style; festive, vivid and hilarious!
In a fascinating and gripping style, akin to a good novel, she demonstrates in much detail the painstaking milestones, before, during and up to the departure of the various contingents. Also captured are the bittersweet rewards underdogs can reap when adversities are met with focused ambition. The depictions of the personalities, bureaucracies and events will make you chuckle, leave you in stitches, and often evoke spine-tingling feelings of national pride in its reader. The imagery makes you feel as though you were at the National Arena all over again and the events are unfolding right in front of your eyes.
“Going For Gold” is a publication that could find its way on your coffee or sofa table as a conversation piece. Or for posterity, on your bookshelf as a reference. There are succinct historical highlights relating to Jamaica’s world-class phenomenal athletic accomplishments. For the island to have staged successfully an event of this magnitude, mere journalistic accounts would appear inadequate. This publication bridges the gap.
Although about athletics, Going For Gold is however not for the most part about athletics per se, but rather about going for a “gold” standard. As Granville Newell succinctly writes in the book’s foreword: “The publication is a tale of a people outdoing themselves, at a time when it was all to easy to say ‘We can’t’ Going For Gold provides a mirror which reminds us yet again of how successfully we as Jamaicans can be when we truly set our minds to the task. I dare say it is required reading.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Gloria Royale Davis is a Communications Consultant who worked for several years as a Public Relations Practitioner. She chaired the Public Relations and Media Committee of the Local Organizing Committee for the Championships.
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Email: [email protected] or [email protected]
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