President of the T&T Olympic Committee Brian Lewis said he was satisfied with the performance of the national team at the recent Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland. The T&T team had a haul of eight medals (three silver and five bronze) to finish 22nd out of 71 countries in the standings and third among Caribbean countries behind Jamaica and St Lucia.
It was the country's second highest medal tally in the quadrangular event behind the 1966 team's nine (5-2-2) in Kingston, Jamaica and an improvement from its six (0-4-2) in Delhi, India in 2010.
Speaking to the Guardian yesterday, Lewis said that while the team had fallen just short of its goal of surpassing the 1966 team, there were still several signs of encouragement.
"Going into these games, we were confident that we could exceed the record given the strength of team in swimming, cycling, boxing and track and field in particular," he said.
"I think that in context of the bigger picture though, they set a positive platform for the upcoming the CAC Games in November, the Pan Am Games in 2015, and the Rio Olympics in 2016. It's important to the keep results in perspective... If we had not won anything, it would have been a cause for concern."
Lewis was especially impressed by some of the contingent's younger members, including Men's Lightweight bronze medallist Michael Alexander and swimmer Dylan Carter, who placed fifth in the 100m Freestyle.
"When you look at the performances of the younger and newer names, they really stepped up. I look forward to seeing them develop in the future."
He also took satisfaction from the return to form of Keshorn Walcott, who bagged a silver in the javelin, as well as the fact that each of T&T's relay teams had managed to make the finals.
Lewis said that while he could not comment on the situation surrounding former Minister of Sports Anil Roberts recent resignation, he praised Roberts' commitment to the country's athletes over his four years in office.
"The TTOC, over the years, has always had excellent relationships with the Ministers of Sports and Mr Roberts was no different. He understood sport and elite sport in particular and he was always supportive of our athletes. The TTOC can only speak from our perspective and as an organisation, we maintained constructive, cordial and very positive relations with the former minister."
Looking ahead to this month's Summer Youth Olympic Games in Nanjing, China, Lewis said: "The Youth Olympics is critical from a development perspective. As opposed to the approach at elite level where one must set targets, the focus here is to constructively use this opportunity as part of their development. They will benefit from competing with their peers at the world level in that environment. One would expect that they rise to the occasion."