It is pleas­ing to see the ma­jor karate or­gan­i­sa­tions get­ting to­geth­er to pro­mote a more pro­fes­sion­al ap­proach to the ad­vance­ment of this sport. It is al­so wel­com­ing to see top lo­cal mar­tial artists from the past and present all work­ing to­geth­er. An­tho­ny Par­ris, Bri­an Chin Le­ung, Dar­ryl Williams, Lex Springer and An­tho­ny Syd­ney have near­ly 200 years of com­bined ex­pe­ri­ence in the sport. They all oc­cu­py lead­er­ship po­si­tions in their in­ter­na­tion­al bod­ies and use their in­flu­ence to im­prove the sport at lo­cal and re­gion­al lev­els.

The T&T Karate Fed­er­a­tion (TTKF) and the Shotokan Karate of T&T are the largest karate groups with their com­bined mem­ber­ship ex­ceed­ing 3,000 peo­ple. The Min­istry of Sport can­not ig­nore the con­tri­bu­tion of these ma­jor or­gan­i­sa­tions. But then again, it is do­ing so al­ready. As the leader, TTKF is way in front with its pro­grammes, events and op­por­tu­ni­ties. Gary Hunt, as for­mer Sport Min­is­ter, as­sist­ed no mat­ter how small. T&T karate is still wait­ing for Anil Roberts, the cur­rent Sports Min­is­ter.

Chris Ki­ta­mo

Via e-mail