Bri­an Lewis

Last week I at­tend­ed two fu­ner­als. One for a man whose un­stint­ing and self­less ef­forts over many years re­mained in the shad­ows. Ap­pre­ci­at­ed by those for­tu­nate to have ben­e­fit­ed from his gen­eros­i­ty of spir­it and love for his coun­try, Roland Gor­don's death in the height of the Car­ni­val sea­son seemed yet an­oth­er cru­el irony. The oth­er was that of Ian Par­ry. A Briton who land­ed on these sun-kissed shores four years ago. Par­ry's con­tri­bu­tion and boom­ing joy­ous per­son­al­i­ty en­deared him to his SAUTT col­leagues and the rug­by fra­ter­ni­ty–both men gone too soon, leav­ing be­hind a void but cer­tain­ly a pos­i­tive lega­cy.

Con­trast them with the mock­ing pre­tenders and mis­chief mak­ers, some of whom shout the loud­est, shame­less­ly for­get­ting that they are best prac­tice ex­am­ples of every­thing they speak against. But.... one day the truth will come out and the cha­rade and red her­rings will be re­vealed. In sport as in life, mock­ing pre­tenders and their ghost ac­tiv­i­ties will even­tu­al­ly be un­masked. You hear lie. That is lie. Car­ni­val al­lows us to sus­pend re­al­i­ty and put aside our trou­bles and dis­gust. We can thumb our noses at the mock­ing pre­tenders. Push back on it and start to grind...when you feel the pre­tender.... push back on it.... I tell you, what a coun­try, nev­er a dull mo­ment.

We sell­ing pipe! How much you want? Push back on it...

Thank­ful­ly, Ash Wednes­day will fol­low. By the way, if any­one knows of a method that can be em­ployed to clean up every day five dogs' worth of pooh with­out get­ting rid of the dogs or run­ning afoul of the wa­ter po­lice, drop me a quick line. It is Car­ni­val week. What to do? Aye! Is there any­one tak­ing sport se­ri­ous­ly? Boy! Where you from? Push back on it. Work done! Fete start! This is not a fete in here it is mad­ness. We palanc­ing–Fan­tas­tic Fri­day and So­ca Monarch, Di­manche Gras and then the reign of the Mer­ry Monarch. In Van­cou­ver, though, things are very se­ri­ous in the lead up to their fan­tas­tic Fri­day and the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny of the 2010 Win­ter Olympics.

Shani Davis may not mean any­thing to most Trinida­di­ans. But he is an Amer­i­can ath­lete that I fol­low. Why? Aside from the fact that he be­came the first Black Win­ter Olympic in­di­vid­ual event cham­pi­on by cap­tur­ing 1,000 me­tres gold at the 2006 Tori­no Games, Davis has a con­tentious rep­u­ta­tion made more so by the fact that his moth­er, a sin­gle par­ent, is his man­ag­er. His sto­ry is an in­trigu­ing one. A phys­i­cal­ly gift­ed ath­lete who has a work eth­ic that will put most to shame; his tal­ent plus his will­ing­ness to work very hard makes for a dev­as­tat­ing com­bi­na­tion in sport. There are many ath­letes blessed with God giv­en abil­i­ty who pre­fer to do just enough to get by. Fol­low the for­tunes of Shani Davis in Van­cou­ver.

By the way, T&T qual­i­fied a Bob­sleigh team and par­tic­i­pat­ed at three (1994, 1998 and 2002) Win­ter Olympic Games. The TTOC plan is to re­turn to the Win­ter Olympic Games in the com­ing years. Car­ni­val week­end Guyana will be up against the best in the Rug­by 7s world at the USA Sev­ens in Las Ve­gas. Guyana de­feat­ed T&T in the 2009 North Amer­i­ca and Caribbean Rug­by 7s fi­nal. Guyana will be mak­ing their In­ter­na­tion­al Rug­by Board (IRB) Sev­ens Se­ries de­but. T&T was the first Caribbean na­tion to grace the IRB Sev­ens se­ries stage. This note­wor­thy feat was achieved in 2004. In crick­et, Aus­tralia seems set to play Ole Mas with the West In­dies.

In­ter­na­tion­al­ly there is a lot tak­ing place in sport. But here it is Car­ni­val by a mile. Plus, Gram­my Queen Be­y­once is in town for her TSTT pro­mot­ed con­cert. Aye! Palance! Must men­tion the Fa­ti­ma Col­lege Car­ni­val fete, it was sim­ply the best. Strive on Fa­ti­ma Boys ....Strive on. Con­grat­u­la­tions to the Fa­ti­ma Old Boys As­so­ci­a­tion on a job well done. Aye! Push back on it...