Sean Nero

TTOC pres­i­dent Bri­an Lewis has called in­to ques­tion the will­ing­ness and com­mit­ment of the Min­istry of Sports and the Sports Com­pa­ny of T&T (SporTT) to val­i­date le­git­i­mate ef­forts by the Na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion of Ath­let­ics Ad­min­is­tra­tions (NAAA) and its cor­po­rate part­ners to pro­mote the growth and sus­tain­abil­i­ty of track and field in T&T.

Speak­ing at Wednes­day's launch of the NAAAs Cham­pi­onship Month held at the Radis­son Ho­tel on Wright­son Road in Port-of-Spain, Lewis un­der­scored the pow­er of track and field to con­tin­ue mak­ing pos­i­tive dif­fer­ences in T&T and won­dered why the min­istry and SporTT of­fi­cials were usu­al­ly ab­sent when list­ed on the pro­gramme to speak. "Giv­en the im­por­tance of track and field to sport in T&T, I al­ways find it a bit dis­qui­et­ing that on a num­ber of oc­ca­sions when I come to speak at this all im­por­tant launch, I al­ways end up speak­ing last when on the pro­gramme, I see SporTT and the Min­istry of Sports is sup­posed to speak af­ter the pres­i­dent of the TTOC. But that in­vari­ably doesn't hap­pen. And I think it would be re­miss of me not to make the ob­ser­va­tion, in a very con­struc­tive way. Giv­en the im­por­tance of track and field and the na­tion­al se­nior cham­pi­onships and the events that track and field and the NAAA and their spon­sors and part­ners would put on dur­ing the month of June, I think that it would have been most apt to have a rep­re­sen­ta­tive here from SporTT and the Min­istry of Sport," Lewis said.

He added, "I know that we are all ex­ceed­ing­ly busy, but if we are in­volved in sport, we must give the re­spect and the ac­knowl­edge­ment that is due, not on­ly to NAAA, not on­ly to the ath­letes of track and field, but al­so and most im­por­tant­ly to the spon­sors and part­ners who have giv­en a com­mit­ment to sup­port sport through track and field. I think it is im­por­tant that we all work to­geth­er in sport, to de­vel­op sport and to put a pos­i­tive im­age on sport and we need to en­cour­age the spon­sors. This is a very im­por­tant event and it needs the sup­port of key stake­hold­ers such as the TTOC, the Min­istry and SporTT." State owned Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC), its sub­sidiary Phoenix Park Gas Proces­sors Lim­it­ed, in­sur­er Sagi­cor and Blue Wa­ters have part­nered with the NAAA for the NGC/NAAA Ju­nior Cham­pi­onships (June 6-7); NGC/NAAA Ju­ve­nile Cham­pi­onships (13-14); NGC/NAAA Com­bined Events Cham­pi­onships (20-21) NGC/ Sagi­cor Open Cham­pi­onships (26-28). The Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um in Wood­brook is the venue for all the events list­ed.