On Wednes­day 29 De­cem­ber 2021, the T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC) paid trib­ute to the ex­ploits of Trinidad and To­ba­go ath­letes on the in­ter­na­tion­al stage and in the end cy­clist Nicholas Paul and track and field ath­lete Michelle-Lee Ahye emerged as its Se­nior Sports­man and Sports­woman of the Year re­spec­tive­ly for 2021.

The cer­e­mo­ny was the TTOC's 27th and for the sec­ond year run­ning it took place vir­tu­al­ly as the or­gan­is­ers cel­e­brat­ed its 75th an­niver­sary be­hind the theme - “The Glass in not Half-Emp­ty”. The event was broad­cast via video-con­fer­enc­ing plat­form Zoom, the TTOC’s YouTube chan­nel, its Face­book page, and its web­site (https://www.ttoc.org).

"There are 86,400 sec­onds in a day. It takes 3 sec­onds to com­pli­ment some­one, in­clud­ing our­selves. That's 86,400 op­por­tu­ni­ties ei­ther to break down or break up. To say the glass is half emp­ty or the glass is NOT half emp­ty.

Fear is the most com­mon hu­man be­hav­iour. The two fears that we were born with it is said is the fear of loud nois­es and the fear of falling. All the oth­er fears are learned fears. Each day we have 86,400 op­por­tu­ni­ties ei­ther to face our fears or to be con­sumed by our fears.

In 2021 our ath­letes showed that they faced their fears. They went to Tokyo 2020 in 2021 and gave their best. They did not make ex­cus­es and of course, they showed emo­tion­al sta­mi­na, phys­i­cal sta­mi­na and men­tal sta­mi­na by fac­ing their dis­ap­point­ments, their fail­ures, their mis­takes and the crit­i­cism of those who weren't in the are­na; who did not have to over­come eco­nom­ic is­sues, lack of train­ing is­sues, doubt tis­sues, death in their fam­i­lies and close cir­cles.

And un­like many of their fel­low cit­i­zens who dis­robed and took off the robe of the red white and black when the go­ing got tough; they, our ath­letes who rep­re­sent­ed Team TTO did not do that.

And what they showed was the abil­i­ty to bounce back, the abil­i­ty not to live in the past and not to be con­sumed by their mis­takes and fail­ures, and as you would have not­ed by the end of the year they per­formed at World Cham­pi­onships and var­i­ous In­ter­na­tion­al com­pe­ti­tions bring­ing great joy

and re­lief and a liv­ing ex­am­ple of the im­por­tance of bounc­ing in back; of the im­por­tance of see­ing the glass as not half-emp­ty and to this we knowl­edge the tremen­dous ef­fort, ex­am­ple and role mod­el of the Youth and Young peo­ple that put on the robe of the red white and black and went in­to the caul­dron of COVID-19 to rep­re­sent this beloved na­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Whether they were sup­port­ed or not; be­cause at the end of the day, we each have to make a de­ci­sion when we reach that fork in the road, 86,400 times dur­ing the day. Face our fears or quit?

Nine­ty per­cent of the peo­ple who fail aren’t de­feat­ed, they sim­ply quit. The glass is not half emp­ty!

As we look for­ward to 2022 we are en­cour­aged by the ex­am­ple and the dis­ci­pline and the re­solve shown by team TTO at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and at the Ju­nior Pan Am Games It wasn't easy - go­ing to these two events, know­ing that many of your cit­i­zens and col­leagues felt that it was mad­ness; that you were em­bar­rass­ing the coun­try and that they were con­sumed by their fears which they were per­fect­ly hap­py to pro­tract and project on Team TTO.

Ladies and gen­tle­men, this is the 27th edi­tion of the TTOC’s An­nu­al Awards. It is the sec­ond vir­tu­al edi­tion and we at the TTOC are in­cred­i­bly and amaz­ing­ly ded­i­cat­ed to bring­ing a sense of pos­i­tiv­i­ty even though pos­i­tive is no longer a good word in the covid-19 era. But at the end of the

day, on this the 29th of De­cem­ber an­nu­al­ly, we look and ac­knowl­edge and ap­pre­ci­ate the good, the im­por­tant, those amongst us who are pre­pared to see the glass not half-emp­ty and to look on the brighter side in the dark tun­nel that we have cur­rent­ly faced.

It would be re­miss of me if I did not ac­knowl­edge that this year was ad­di­tion­al­ly dif­fi­cult be­cause each of us, my­self in­clud­ed, lost very very dear friends, close col­leagues, men­tors and con­fi­dants to COVID-19. The Sports­world it­self al­so suf­fered some loss­es. We lost peo­ple such as Dar­ryl

Ma­habir, An­tho­ny Har­ford, Hu­bert Stafford Jr, Pe­ter Ale­ong along with many oth­ers whom you would have rec­og­nized that the TTOC paid trib­ute to ear­li­er on dur­ing this event.

In clos­ing, I would like to say that it was very dif­fi­cult; the an­nounce­ments would be made be­cause of what I said ear­li­er on, the tremen­dous ef­fort of every sin­gle mem­ber of Team TTO at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games and the Ju­nior Pan Amer­i­can Games.

But in the end, the TTOC had to make a call and in the con­text of the Peo­ple's Choice, it was a de­ci­sion of the peo­ple, by the peo­ple and for the peo­ple. So I con­grat­u­late those who would be an­nounced short­ly as the TTOC award win­ners for 2021.

On a per­son­al note, I just want to say thank you to every sin­gle one. Adios mi ami­gos, Adios mi ami­gas. Thank you very much, Trinidad and To­ba­go. Thank you very much TTOC and thank you very much the Trinidad and To­ba­go Olympic and Com­mon­wealth Sports move­ment for your tremen­dous sup­port over the years; dur­ing very dif­fi­cult times and for your en­cour­age­ment and joy shared dur­ing the good times."