Amidst cer­e­mo­ny and fan­fare, the Olympic car­a­van coun­try tour rolled in­to Ma­yaro on Fri­day, as the cel­e­bra­tion fit­ting­ly cli­maxed at the Ma­yaro Re­source Cen­tre, the mul­ti-pur­pose fa­cil­i­ty run by en­er­gy com­pa­ny BP T&T, a head­line spon­sor of the T&T Olympic and Par­a­lympic Com­mit­tees. As ex­pect­ed, Olympic javelin gold medal win­ner, Keshorn Wal­cott, was the toast of res­i­dents of Ma­yaro and sur­round­ing ar­eas, in­clud­ing Guayagua­yare, Mafek­ing, New­lands, Or­toire and Ker­na­han, who con­verged hours be­fore in an­tic­i­pa­tion of the car­a­van's ar­rival. He was ac­com­pa­nied by fel­low Olympians Roger Daniel, Mick­el Thomas and Machel Ce­de­nio.

Wal­cott put the oc­ca­sion in­to con­text: "Hav­ing start­ed off in Princes Town, it's been a long day for all of us, but with the wel­come we re­ceived from Ma­yaro, we have all been re-en­er­gised. It is es­pe­cial­ly great to see how many kids came out to wel­come us be­cause they are the fu­ture stars of Ma­yaro and the na­tion. The joy on their faces makes this very much worth it for the en­tire team." On hand to greet and wel­come the ath­letes were Win­ston 'Gyp­sy' Pe­ters, Min­is­ter of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment and Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Ma­yaro, as well as Haz­arie Ramdeen, Chair­man of the Ma­yaro/Rio Claro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, who pre­sent­ed tro­phies of ho­n­our to Wal­cott for his ster­ling ac­com­plish­ment. The crowd wel­comed the news from Min­is­ter Pe­ters that an Olympic-size swim­ming pool was in the pipeline. "Ma­yaro has al­ways been a rich source of tal­ent and, in­spired by the ac­com­plish­ments of the ath­letes who rep­re­sent­ed our na­tion at the Olympics, it is up to us to en­sure that our young peo­ple get the very same op­por­tu­ni­ty to shine. "I see it as my sa­cred du­ty to serve the peo­ple of Ma­yaro and make those op­por­tu­ni­ties avail­able to them. That is why I want to de­clare that by 2013, the peo­ple of Ma­yaro, es­pe­cial­ly the young ath­letes, will have ac­cess to a brand new Olympic­size swim­ming pool.

It is as much for them, as it is for the fu­ture glo­ry of Trinidad and To­ba­go," Min­is­ter Pe­ters de­clared. Dif­fer­ent gen­er­a­tions of artistes per­formed at a stir­ring cul­tur­al show, in­clud­ing young Kerice Pas­call singing her up­lift­ing ca­lyp­so 'T&T la­bel' as well as vet­er­an Calvin 'Lord Sur­pris­er' Romero who had the crowd call­ing for an en­core of his song 'Old age is a dis­as­ter'. There was al­so a pan so­lo by An­tho­ny 'De Ju­ba' Charles and an en­er­getic dance per­for­mance by the Ma­yaro Folk Per­form­ers. BP Trinidad and To­ba­go is a spon­sor of the re­cent Lon­don Olympic Games and the Lon­don Par­a­lympic Games sched­uled to be­gin on Sep­tem­ber 29. The com­pa­ny al­so des­ig­nat­ed six of the na­tion­al ath­letes, Njisane Phillips, Ren­ny Quow, Cleopa­tra Borel-Brown, Michelle-Lee Ahye, Car­los Greene and Shan­ntol Ince, as bpTT ath­lete am­bas­sadors