Oh what a night!

Open­ing night of the 21st Com­mon­wealth Games in Gold Coast, Aus­tralia was fan­tas­tic for many rea­sons, not least be­cause the lo­cal con­tin­gent was able to show off the unique­ly flavoured T&T cul­ture.

Sprint­er Michelle-Lee Ahye was a wel­comed sight with the na­tion­al flag on Wednes­day night in Queens­land, (the fifth time Aus­tralia has host­ed these games) as she walked proud­ly on the open­ing stage in front of over 25,000 fans.

It was the Car­ni­val cos­tumes worn by three of this coun­try’s ath­letes Tonya Nero (Marathon), Ayan­na Alexan­der (Triple Jumper) and Naim Mo­hammed (Bad­minton) that stirred the crowd and left many in awe as the mas­quer­aders pa­rad­ed to sev­er­al flash­es of cam­eras on the night.

Chef de Mis­sion Di­anne Hen­der­son, who was the as­sis­tant Chef at the pre­vi­ous Com­mon­wealth Games in Scot­land, told Guardian Me­dia: "I de­cid­ed that we need­ed to do some­thing dif­fer­ent this time around, and while we had Pe­ter Min­shall cos­tumes in the past on sport­ing stages, this time I made con­tact with a com­mit­tee Mem­ber of Tribe Band and they gave us three cos­tumes, which we were very grate­ful for, and we be­lieve that the world would have been amazed by our de­signs and Tribe’s great as­sis­tance will cer­tain­ly again en­hance our Car­ni­val.

"In fact, next time around, we might have the en­tire team in cos­tume, who knows but we need to al­ways ex­press our cul­ture and di­ver­si­ty while not los­ing sight of our unique style as well."

Pres­i­dent of the T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee, Bri­an Lewis said, "It was very pleas­ing and we have to thank Tribe for do­nat­ing the cos­tumes and for us to have our ath­letes as cul­tur­al am­bas­sadors, is what we want the world to un­der­stand and ap­pre­ci­ate when we are on the world stage.

"Once we win a gold medal that the na­tion­al an­them will be played via the steel pan ver­sion, we are fi­nal­is­ing that so hope­ful­ly this will hap­pen here at these games," said a hope­ful Lewis.

"The team has set­tled in nice­ly, there is a lot to get done, but I can on­ly say that both the ac­com­mo­da­tion and trans­porta­tion have been more than ad­e­quate so far, and the mood in the camp is very up­beat and ea­ger to suc­ceed," said Hen­der­son.

As to Ahye’s se­lec­tion, "It was what we be­lieved was rich­ly de­served giv­en her ser­vice to this coun­try in the past and the fact that she con­tin­ues to show her love for coun­try by al­ways be­ing there as much as she can. She was very proud to have this ho­n­our and it lets her know just how much peo­ple recog­nise her con­tri­bu­tion.

“As a team, there is a good feel­ing around and it seems to me that a lot of the ath­letes here are in a good place, they all ap­pear to have the dri­ve and de­sire to suc­ceed in them as well.”

In­ter­est­ing­ly, this will be the most ex­pen­sive Com­mon­wealth Games ever put to­geth­er, with re­port­ed spend­ing es­ti­mat­ed to fin­ish at around US$1.5 bil­lion. It will be the first time that women have the same num­ber of events as men and the most para-events in­cor­po­rat­ed with 38 in to­tal.

Hen­der­son was pleased about the growth of women sports say­ing: "It is great for this to hap­pen here, as slow­ly over time, we are wit­ness­ing the progress of women in all ar­eas in the world and it sports it should not be any dif­fer­ent and our team is well rep­re­sent­ed in this way as well.”

In ac­tion to­day are Swim­mer Dy­lan Carter, who re­turns to the Aquat­ic Cen­tre in Men's 200 me­tres freestyle.He was to race last night in the 50m but­ter­fly.

In ta­ble ten­nis T&T will com­pete in the Team Event against North­ern Ire­land while in cy­cling (Track), the Men's Keirin starts for T&T.

In box­ing, Nigel Paul re­ceived a bye in the Men's 91kg di­vi­sion and will ad­vance to quar­ter fi­nal on April 10 against In­dia's Satish Ku­mar.