Sometimes, it's enough just to be thankful.
When you squander a lead against the United States and then get thrashed by Argentina, as happened to the national hockey squad in Chile, when you win just one of three preliminary matches yet still make the Super Sixes, as the West Indies women cricketers did in Australia, or when you reach the Under-20 World Cup football finals, also with only one win from three games, as Trinidad and Tobago have, the natural tendency of cynics like myself is to make light of the supposed achievements that these performances purport to represent.
But on this occasion, it may not be quite what you're accustomed to from this column.
Yes, this has happened to our hockey men before, most notably at the 2007 Pan American Games in Rio de Janeiro, where all the talk was about taking on Argentina for the gold medal and a place at the 2008 Summer Olympics, only for the Canadians to leave us, and the Argentines, whimpering about what could have been while they packed their bags for Beijing.
An opening victory over South Africa virtually guaranteed the West Indies' qualification for the second round of the Women's World Cup, although subsequent defeats to the Aussies and New Zealand, coupled with South Africa's annihilation by 199 runs (they were routed for just 51--England's second innings total at Sabina Park last month) at the hands of the New Zealanders, may have taken some of the gloss off the achievement of Merissa Aguilleira's side.
And when you have a qualifying competition in which half of the teams advance to the finals of FIFA's second biggest men's tournament, the realisation hits home that, as Lasana Liburd explained so succinctly on Wednesday in these pages, the eight squads in action in Bacolet and Macoya all had an equal chance of either going to Egypt in September or going home. Surely it should be tougher to advance. Shouldn't it?
Maybe, but such valid observations and an almost ingrained reluctance to hail any effort as the greatest thing since doubles should not blind us to the fact that sporting teams from this largely inconsequential part of the world continue to punch well above their weight on the global stage.
Check it out.
If these were pound-for-pound contests, a team representing a country of 1.3 million would not be allowed to step into the ring with the flagbearers of the USA (304 million) and Argentina (40 million). Yet, at the Pan American tournament being played in Santiago, Trinidad and Tobago let a winning position against the Americans slip, and although they were hammered 7-0 by the Argentines, the men in red took their frustrations out on Uruguay (3.4 million) with a 10-0 mauling on Tuesday to avoid the cellar position in their group.
That result earned them a showdown yesterday with Brazil (192 million) for the minor placings. Again, if it were just a matter of size, the referee would have stopped the contest even before it started.
When it comes to the male senior regional cricket team, we all talk about a West Indian population of just over six million, many of them lifted or lowered by every performance. But it's fair to say that the women's equivalent operates in virtual anonymity, which is why the win over South Africa caught so many by surprise.
Under-funded, under-resourced and under-appreciated, they have already exceeded the expectations of the few who were actually aware that they were playing in a World Cup, so the upcoming Super Six matches against Pakistan (tonight), England and India--whatever the results--are a triumph in themselves. And given their battling performances despite going down to New Zealand and Australia, they may still be able to pull another surprise before it's all over.
This evening, Leston Paul leads the home side into their semi-final showdown of the CONCACAF Under-20 Tournament at the Marvin Lee Stadium against the Americans on the back of one win from three preliminary group games.
It hardly seems the pedigree of World Cup finalists, but that record includes victory over Canada--qualifiers for the last four Under-20 World Cups--while the side more than held their own against table-toppers Costa Rica and the eliminated Mexicans.
These are not inconsiderable achievements, especially as football, cricket and hockey are established, prominent sports, not some extreme, television-generated hybrid that has a devoted but extremely small following and no global recognition whatsoever.
It is hoped, of course, that we eventually build from these achievements and qualify for the Olympics and Hockey World Cups, vie for the women's cricket crown and become increasingly familiar faces in the Big Yard of football.
Indeed, it can be argued that, for a nation and a region so small, we expect too much and put way too much pressure on ourselves. But it's only because we have a real sense of what we can achieve, even without the populations, financial resources and organisational efficiency of the shining lights in the sporting galaxy.
However, that desire to reach for the stars shouldn't get in the way of appreciating when we've scaled the occasional summit.