Je­lani Beck­les

The T&T Gym­nas­tics Fed­er­a­tion (TTGF) has made the de­ci­sion to pull na­tion­al gym­nast The­ma Williams out of the Rio Olympics Test event be­cause she is cur­rent­ly suf­fer­ing with a sore an­kle and did not per­form at a high lev­el dur­ing one of her train­ing days.

Williams was set to com­pete in the women's artis­tic gym­nas­tics event this af­ter­noon, but the TTGF made the de­ci­sion to send her al­ter­nate Marisa Dick to the Test event to give T&T the best chance to qual­i­fy for the 2016 Rio Olympic Games in Au­gust.

Gym­nas­tics coach John Ged­dert, who Williams has been train­ing with in Michi­gan, USA, lead­ing up to the Test Event has been send­ing dai­ly re­ports to the TTGF con­cern­ing Williams' progress.

Un­for­tu­nate­ly, af­ter a re­port from Ged­dert sug­gest­ing that Williams was not per­form­ing at a high lev­el dur­ing one of her train­ing days and suf­fer­ing with a sore an­kle, the TTGF de­cid­ed to send Dick to the Test event.

At press time yes­ter­day, Williams' moth­er He­len Adams told the T&T Guardian that she did not want to com­ment on the sit­u­a­tion as she was in a meet­ing with lawyers.It has been a tough and emo­tion­al jour­ney for Williams in the past six months as her pre­pare for par­tic­i­pa­tion at the Test event was al­ways in doubt since qual­i­fy­ing.

Williams, 20, qual­i­fied for the Olympic Test event af­ter plac­ing 59th over­all in the artis­tic women's in­di­vid­ual qual­i­fi­ca­tion at the World Gym­nas­tics Cham­pi­onships in Glas­gow, Scot­land, in Oc­to­ber 2015. Dick al­so com­pet­ed at the World Cham­pi­onships, plac­ing 77th over­all but did not qual­i­fy.

Williams should have been au­to­mat­i­cal­ly se­lect­ed by the T&T Gym­nas­tics Fed­er­a­tion (TTGF) to rep­re­sent this coun­try at the Test event based on the rules and cri­te­ria set by the TTGF. How­ev­er, it was stat­ed by the Fed­er­a­tion that Williams and Dick will have to com­pete in two more events be­fore one is cho­sen for the Test event.

Af­ter con­sul­ta­tion among mem­bers of the TTGF, Williams was cho­sen for the Test event.

Then in Feb­ru­ary se­mi-nude pho­tographs of Williams and Dick cir­cu­lat­ed on so­cial me­dia which forced the TTGF to take the mat­ter to the Fed­er­a­tion's Dis­ci­pli­nary Com­mit­tee. Williams' at­ten­dance at the Test Event was then in doubt again, but af­ter de­lib­er­a­tion the TTGF con­firmed last month that Williams will be T&T's rep­re­sen­ta­tive at the Rio Test event.

Then yes­ter­day it was an­nounced that Williams will be re­placed by Dick.