As the Olympic Games take place in Paris, there is a fierce bat­tle tak­ing place on the side­lines. The World An­ti-Dop­ing Agency (WA­DA) has been in con­flict with the US Gov­ern­ment. US law­mak­ers have ac­cused WA­DA of fail­ing to in­ves­ti­gate dop­ing al­le­ga­tions against Chi­nese swim­mers prop­er­ly.

When she was an eight-year-old girl, Rachel Welch-Phillips moved with her fam­i­ly to Cara­cas, where her fa­ther served for close to nine years as a civ­il ser­vant at the T&T em­bassy.

Cur­ry duck was the star of the PNM Pointe-a-Pierre Con­stituen­cy’s Cur­ry Duck Cook­out and Fam­i­ly Day at the Plai­sance Park Recre­ation­al Ground, Clax­ton Bay.

It guides and in­spires the T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC) se­nior ad­min­is­tra­tion of­fi­cer who is serv­ing as chef de mis­sion for the Ju­ly 26–Au­gust 11 Paris 2024 Olympic Games, a po­si­tion she’s held be­fore but one she nev­er an­tic­i­pat­ed she would achieve at the be­gin­ning of her ca­reer.

Al­though T&T’s first no­table par­tic­i­pa­tion in the Sum­mer Olympics was in 1948 in the Lon­don Olympics, it wasn’t un­til 1972 that this coun­try had a fe­male ath­lete par­tic­i­pat­ing in the games.

This Sun­day’s book­shelf spot­lights ac­claimed writer and artist Shani Mootoo, who was born in Ire­land, raised in T&T, and re­lo­cat­ed to Cana­da in her ear­ly twen­ties.

How­ev­er, she will­ing­ly ad­mits that while teach­ing can be tremen­dous­ly ful­fill­ing, it al­so has its chal­lenges.

Sole and Sanaa Fred­er­ick are part of T&T’s 17-mem­ber con­tin­gent at the Paris Olympics which got un­der­way on Fri­day.

My Cul­ture and Me, a colour­ing book de­signed and pro­duced by au­thor and po­et Keeron Isaac, 28, her­alds T&T’s many won­ders, in­clud­ing birds, Car­ni­val, cui­sine, and tra­di­tion­al mas char­ac­ters. It is part of his pub­li­ca­tion, Po­et Tree, the first in­stal­ment in a tril­o­gy of po­et­ry.

Through­out her life, Di­ane Hen­der­son has al­ways been first to do some­thing un­usu­al. There­fore, it was no sur­prise when the ex­pe­ri­enced sports ad­min­is­tra­tor was elect­ed the first fe­male Pres­i­dent of the T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC).

The 22nd edi­tion of the Laven­tille Eman­ci­pa­tion Steel­band Fes­ti­val and Pa­rade host­ed by the Laven­tille Steel­band Fes­ti­val Foun­da­tion (LSFF), takes place in Suc­cess Vil­lage, Laven­tille on Au­gust 3 from 5 pm to mid­night.

Next Sat­ur­day, one day af­ter her 22nd birth­day, so­pra­no Clarice Beep­ut will con­front one of her biggest fears when she sings Mozart’s “Ex­sul­tate, Ju­bi­late” at a con­cert in Port-of-Spain.