KALI­FA SARAH CLYNE

The T&T Olympic team will be ser­e­nad­ed by Kes the Band in a cel­e­bra­tion of na­tion­al pride when the of­fi­cial T&T Olympic team is named to­day. Danielle Jones, cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­ag­er at BP Trinidad and To­ba­go (bpTT), says to­day's cel­e­bra­tions will be­gin with a march from the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA), along Fred­er­ick Street to Wood­ford Square, Port-of-Spain. BPTT is an of­fi­cial spon­sor of both the T&T Olympic team and the T&T Par­a­lympic team. Jones said a hu­man chain, made up of 400 peo­ple in na­tion­al colours, will sur­round the square. "Too of­ten we cel­e­brate our ath­letes on­ly af­ter they make a big achieve­ment at the games. We want to make our ath­letes feel like stars be­fore they go," said Jones. She said Kees Di­ef­fen­thaller, who re­leased the in­spi­ra­tional song We Are Con­querors in March, had ap­proached the com­pa­ny in­di­cat­ing his de­sire to do a song for the ath­letes who will be go­ing to Lon­don for the Olympics. "We part­nered with him, not on­ly be­cau se the BP group is the of­fi­cial oil and gas spon­sor of Lon­don Olympics 2012, but al­so be­cause bpTT is aligned with the con­cept of na­tion­al pride in T&T," said Jones. She said the com­pa­ny want­ed to do some­thing lo­cal­ly and cul­tur­al­ly rel­e­vant and were hap­py to part­ner with Kes for an an­them for the T&T Olympic team. "BPTT has been in T&T for about 50 years, this is the 50th an­niver­sary of in­de­pen­dence and it is an Olympic year, so we need­ed to do some­thing spe­cial," Jones said. To­day's events will cul­mi­nate with the an­nounce­ment of the T&T Olympic team at 11.45 am at Wood­ford Square.