Ath­letes in T&T have been giv­en an ad­di­tion­al in­cen­tive to pur­sue high­er heights in sports. Min­is­ter of Sports and Youth Af­fairs Phillip Watts opened an­oth­er Elite Ath­letes Gym, this time at the Na­tion­al Cy­cling Cen­tre in Bal­main, Cou­va, fol­low­ing the open­ing of the Na­tion­al Rac­quet Cen­tre in Tacarigua, a week ago.

Watts whose de­sire is to trans­form sports by en­sur­ing that re­sources are pro­vid­ed, told a wide cross-sec­tion of ath­letes, ad­min­is­tra­tors, well-wish­ers, and of­fi­cials of both the Sports Com­pa­ny of T&T (SporTT) and the Min­istry of Sports and Youth Af­fairs that the new de­vel­op­ment sig­nals a new era of train­ing, re­cov­ery, and holis­tic well-be­ing for T&T’s elite ath­letes, spear­head­ed by the Elite Ath­lete Well-be­ing Unit. The gym was of­fi­cial­ly opened on Sep­tem­ber 22, cour­tesy of a col­lab­o­ra­tive ef­fort of SporTT and the Sports Min­istry.

Watts, in a re­lease, said the world-class fa­cil­i­ty marks an­oth­er trans­for­ma­tion­al leap in the Gov­ern­ment’s in­vest­ment in sport.

He added, “We are not mere­ly cut­ting a rib­bon, we are open­ing the doors to new pos­si­bil­i­ties and bold­ly af­firm­ing our na­tion’s un­shake­able faith in the pow­er and promise of our ath­letes. This world-class fa­cil­i­ty serves as a liv­ing tes­ta­ment to our gov­ern­ment’s en­dur­ing pledge, en­sur­ing every ath­lete has the re­sources, spaces, and ex­pert sup­port need­ed to pur­sue great­ness and lift Trinidad and To­ba­go to new heights of sport­ing ex­cel­lence.”

Com­ing on the heels of last week’s feat in which Olympic gold medal­list Keshorn Wal­cott won the gold medal in the men’s javelin at the World Ath­let­ics Cham­pi­onships in Tokyo, Japan, and sprint­er Jereem "The Dream" Richards claimed the sil­ver medal in the 400 me­tres fi­nal, the Elite Ath­lete Gyms are pur­pose-built for ex­plo­sive move­ment, op­ti­mal con­di­tion­ing, and team de­vel­op­ment.

It will be man­aged by ac­cred­it­ed coach­es, who will pro­vide a dy­nam­ic en­vi­ron­ment that fos­ters ded­i­ca­tion, re­silience, and pride, while stand­ing as tan­gi­ble sym­bols of the Min­istry’s on­go­ing mis­sion to grow sport and youth de­vel­op­ment na­tion­wide.

Head of Elite Ath­lete Well-Be­ing, To­bias Ot­t­ley, high­light­ed the vi­sion be­hind the gyms, say­ing, “We are de­vel­op­ing mul­ti­ple spaces clos­er to the ath­letes, to call their home, and as a means to en­able them to evolve, grow, and see their phys­i­cal and men­tal de­vel­op­ment. The vi­sion of the elite gym is func­tion­al­i­ty with a sense of pride, hence the util­i­sa­tion of the na­tion­al colours through­out the equip­ment. We al­so made it our busi­ness to de­sign a spa­cious en­vi­ron­ment to fa­cil­i­tate teams such as foot­ball, crick­et, and cy­cling. We hope that this space will serve as a bea­con for gen­er­a­tions of ath­letes.”

Mean­while, Shirley Young-Grif­fith, moth­er of swim­mer Shi­an Grif­fith, ex­pressed her ap­pre­ci­a­tion: “I was blown away by the pro­fes­sion­al­ism and eval­u­a­tion that en­com­pass the process. This pro­gramme is re­al­ly geared to­wards build­ing a holis­tic in­di­vid­ual ath­lete. My son has pro­duced a per­son­al best at every meet he has at­tend­ed, even ac­quir­ing two sil­ver medals at Carif­ta. I en­cour­age every par­ent I meet to al­low their chil­dren to ex­pe­ri­ence this lev­el of train­ing and ded­i­ca­tion of­fered.”