T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC) pres­i­dent had noth­ing but love for his fel­low walk­ers who par­tic­i­pat­ed in the T&T In­ter­na­tion­al Marathon on Sun­day.

Un­like this year's marathon race which was re-rout­ed to the cy­cling track in Ch­aguara­mas, the walk­ers stuck to the tra­di­tion­al course and Lewis shared his ap­pre­ci­a­tion for the com­mit­ment of the group for the cause of rais­ing mon­ey for T&T ath­letes.

He said: "A 26.2-mile jour­ney that was a test of char­ac­ter and re­solve but al­so a jour­ney aimed at help­ing youth and young peo­ple who dream of achiev­ing and win­ning an Olympic gold medal.

"The TTOC ex­press­es its thanks to every walk­er who took up the chal­lenge to walk to raise funds and aware­ness for the TTOC TeamT­TO 10Golds24 Ath­lete Wel­fare and Prepa­ra­tion Fund."

Join­ing Lewis on the walk, all dressed in the TTOC's sig­na­ture #10Golds24, were 15-year-olds An­drew Pacheco and Akeem Desuza, 18-year-old Akinde Pacheco, 84-year-old Der­rick McIn­tyre, 73-year-old Richie Rahim, Bhoopat Ram­per­sad, Sen­a­tor Clarence Ram­barath- Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture, Lands and Fish­eries, UNC Coun­cil­lor Kel­ly Vil­lage/War­renville- Samuel Sankar, Nigel Bap­tiste, Re­pub­lic Bank Lim­it­ed Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor, Trudy Loui­son, First Cit­i­zens Group Mar­ket­ing and Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Of­fi­cer, TTOC trea­sur­er Cur­tis Nero, Chris­t­ian Han­nays, Bharath Ra­moutar, Roger Sant and An­dre Bap­tiste.

The oth­er TTOC 2022 marathon walk­ers were Ray­ber Bowen, An­ton La­Fond, Kei­th Lash­ley, Ter­rel John, Michael Re­ece, Melanie Gul­ston, Ra­mon Sam­bra­no, Je­lani Bap­tiste and Taton Alexan­der, Maitagual Road Crew's Ra­mona Pit­man, Chris Brice (Flag­man), Glen Brice, Hay­den Men­doza, Cur­tis Men­doza and Ju­nior Gar­cia, Fut­sal T&T pres­i­dent Ge­of­frey Ed­wards, who is abroad but com­plet­ed the 26.2 miles event vir­tu­al­ly at his cur­rent lo­ca­tion in the Unit­ed King­dom.

Lewis was pleased with ef­forts made by the par­tic­i­pants to ad­here to the COVID-19 reg­u­la­tions, pro­to­cols and guide­lines and the sup­port of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) and the marathon's or­gan­is­ers.

On be­half of his com­mit­tee, Lewis said: "We ac­knowl­edge the sup­port of the TTPS- in par­tic­u­lar - Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Wayne Mys­tar, In­spec­tor Cpl Dwari­ka and WPC Tim­o­thy. We al­so recog­nise the TTIM Com­mit­tee for its on­go­ing sup­port since 2015.

"Thank you to the TTOC cor­po­rate part­ners who have been un­wa­ver­ing in their sup­port of the #10golds24 Ath­lete Wel­fare and Prepa­ra­tion Fund Marathon Walk- PUMA, First Cit­i­zens, NL­CB, FLOW and the me­dia and me­dia per­son­al­i­ties."

The TTOC head al­so shared that this year, due to COVID-19 pro­to­cols, not every­one who want­ed to walk was able to.

He said: "Those who were able to, we ac­knowl­edge and thank You. To the reg­u­lars who want­ed to walk but couldn't - Cap­tain Andy Cheekes, Bertram Smart and Tony Lee you were missed.

"To get to St Mary's Junc­tion, Freeport for 2 am to start a 26.2-mile walk to White­hall, Queen's Park Sa­van­nah for a jour­ney that would take be­tween six to eight hours for a cause and for youth and young peo­ple who may pass you straight in per­son and nev­er recog­nise or ac­knowl­edge you or know you ex­ist, is an act of un­selfish com­mit­ment, du­ty and pa­tri­o­tism - 'For the Love of T&T'."