Being “a good sport” means you are gracious when you win and gracious when you lose. Both are difficult but more so when you are accustomed to winning and unexpectedly you lose. Here, in Cayman, we don’t have too many sporting wins because of our small population and the facilities for our young athletes woefully small. We are accustomed to being losers and, as a population, we just shrug and hope we can do better next time. We are gracious because we are used to it.

But we do have some sporting heroes. Chantelle Morrison, Cameron Stafford, Cydonie Mothersill, Ronald Forbes, Mark Letterlough and Charles Whittaker, are a few names that come to mind, who have achieved winning success. They have all been gracious in their wins and are certainly ‘good sports”.

It was with some pride to learn of the achievement of our sensational swimming brothers, Brett and Shaune Fraser to be placed 1 and 2 in the same race (200m freestyle final) at the Pan American Games this week. Not only did Brett get a gold medal (Cayman’s first ever in the Pan Am Games) but broke the Games record that now stands at 1min.47.18secs. Congratulations.

Last, but by no means least there is our under 20 female football (the proper football game) team. The Cayman Islands national men’s football squad have been lacking in all departments, not scoring goals, some members not turning up for practice because they want paying to practice, and showing very little pride in being selected to play for their country. Our young girls; however, have shown them how it’s done. They beat Suriname in Suriname 4-0 in their CFU World Cup qualifier. Listen to what 15 year old Shanelle Frederick from Cayman Brac had to say after the game: “It’s an honour to put on the Cayman Shirt and play with these girls. They are all my sisters and we are a family.”

Now if those words do not make Shanelle a “good sport” I cannot think of any others that are higher.

Let’s all be “good sports”.