SAN­DRA L BLOOD

blood­san­dral@ya­hoo.com

T&T’s largest-ever con­tin­gent at a mul­ti-sport event is set to make his­to­ry at the Sum­mer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan, start­ing to­day.

Ac­cord­ing to the pres­i­dent of the T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC), Bri­an Lewis the ath­letes vy­ing to bring home medals have “sharp­ened their re­silience, op­ti­mism, re­li­a­bil­i­ty, readi­ness, will­ing­ness and fear­less­ness.”

Among the 33 Olympians on Team TTO are a track and field con­tin­gent com­pris­ing Michelle-Lee Ahye, Kel­ly-Ann Bap­tiste, Sparkle McK­night, Tyra Git­tens, Por­tious War­ren, Se­moy Hack­ett, Khal­i­fa St Fort, Ay­la, Stanis­claus, Kai Selvon, Kyle Greaux, Jereem Richards, Machel Ce­de­no, De­on Lendore, Dwight St Hillaire, And­wuelle Wright, Keshorn Wal­cott, Kion Ben­jamin, Adell Colthrust, Er­ic Har­ri­son, Akan­ni His­lop, Richard Thomp­son, Johnathan Far­in­ha, Asa Gue­vais, Che Lara.

Rep­re­sent­ing this coun­try in oth­er sport­ing dis­ci­plines are Aaron Prince (box­ing), Te­niel Camp­bell, Kwe­si Brown, Nicholas Paul (cy­cling), Gabrielle Wood (ju­do), Fe­lice Aisha Chow (row­ing), An­drew Lewis (sail­ing), and Dy­lan Carter and Chereile Thomp­son (swim­ming).

All are al­ready mak­ing his­to­ry as par­tic­i­pants in Olympics that are cause for much con­cern and trep­i­da­tion, Lewis said.

“Both ath­letes and TTOC had to draw from our in­nate re­serves, ul­ti­mate­ly see­ing on­ly the strong sur­vive through on­go­ing con­sul­ta­tions, strate­gies and con­sid­er­a­tions. The Games are here, and com­mit­ted T&T is there!” he de­clared.

“Ath­letes learned that this year’s Olympics de­mands much greater re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and far-reach­ing lev­els of dis­ci­pline. They are es­sen­tial­ly rep­re­sent­ing all those who couldn’t make it, and at any giv­en mo­ment the Games’ or­gan­is­ers can levy new poli­cies.

“The in­ten­si­ty of prepa­ra­tion and de­mands on both ath­letes and TTOC, prop­er risk as­sess­ment and man­age­ment, cut­ting through red tapes to ac­com­mo­date speedy changes un­for­giv­ing­ly called up­on to make, and, lit­er­al­ly tak­ing night to make day as Japan is16 hours ahead of T&T, was in­evitable. The ath­letes came first.”

With all the racial, gen­der and eth­nic is­sues af­fect­ing sports, Lewis said he hopes the ath­letes won’t face any such cir­cum­stance and can fo­cus is stay­ing safe, do­ing well and en­joy­ing re­spect.

Send­ing best wish­es to Team TTO, Sports Min­is­ter Sham­fa Cud­joe said, “The fact that these stan­dard-bear­ers have cho­sen to face the fire, beat the odds and go the dis­tance in these tur­bu­lent and un­cer­tain times, speaks vol­umes to our strength, courage and re­silience as a peo­ple.”

She al­so ex­pressed ex­cite­ment that, should T&T se­cure gold at the Olympics, for the first time ath­letes will hear the Na­tion­al An­them played on the pan dur­ing the award cer­e­mo­ny by T&T’s Na­tion­al Steel Sym­pho­ny Or­ches­tra (NSSO).

Tokyo is the first city in Asia to hold the Olympics twice. It was al­so the host city for the 1964 games. This time, how­ev­er, the Olympics are be­ing held against the back­drop of the COVID-19- state of emer­gency de­clared by Japan’s Prime Min­is­ter Yoshi­hide Suga.

Lewis as­sured that the TTOC and the con­tin­gent are com­mit­ted to prompt­ly ad­her­ing and adapt­ing. That in­cludes train­ing and com­pet­ing in a full bio-se­cure bub­ble.

Con­sis­tent with the TTOC’s Fu­ture is Woman pro­gramme, a fe­male ath­lete is ex­pect­ed to car­ry the T&T flag at this morn­ing’s open­ing cer­e­mo­ny.

Ex­clu­sive cov­er­age of games on CNC3 starts with the colour­ful open­ing cer­e­mo­ny at 7 am.