Anand Ram­per­sad

As T&T cel­e­brates 53 years of po­lit­i­cal In­de­pen­dence, we should re­mind our­selves of the out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tions over this pe­ri­od of our sports­women and sports­men in their re­spec­tive sport­ing dis­ci­plines lo­cal­ly, re­gion­al­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.

Ath­let­ics:

�2 Hasley Craw­ford, gold medal, 100 me­tres Mon­tre­al Olympics 1976

�2 Keshorn Wal­cott gold medal javelin Lon­don Olympics 2012, Pan Amer­i­can Games, Toron­to 2015

�2 Je­hue Gor­don, gold medal, 400 me­tres hur­dle IAAF World Cham­pi­onship in Moscow, Rus­sia in 2014

�2 Cleopa­tra Borel, gold,shot put Pan Amer­i­can Games Toron­to 2015

�2 Jar­rin Solomon, Ren­ny Quow, Machel Ce­de­nio and Lalonde Gor­don 4x400 gold Pan Amer­i­can Games, Toron­to 2015

�2 Kel­ly-Ann Bap­tiste, Michelle-Lee Ahye, Re­yare Thomas and Se­moy Hack­ett 4x100 bronze, 1AAF World Cham­pi­onship, Bei­jing, Chi­na, 2015

�2 Ren­ny Quow, Machel Ce­de­nio, De­on Lendore and Lalonde Gor­don 4x400 sil­ver 1AAF World Cham­pi­onship, Bei­jing, Chi­na, 2015, new na­tion­al time 2:58.20

�2 Khal­i­fa St Fort, sil­ver 100m IAAF World Ju­nior Cham­pi­onship, Cali Colom­bia, 2015

�2 Ron­dell Sor­ril­lo, Ke­ston Bled­man, Em­manuel Cal­len­der, Dan-Neil Teles­ford, Wen­dell Mot­t­ley, Ato Boldon, Richard Thomp­son Daryl Brown, Marc Burns, Richard Thomp­son, Mikel Thomas, and Kam­ria Du­rant

�2 Trinidad and To­ba­go World Mas­ters Ath­let­ic team (out­door) ten medals (4 golds, 3 sil­ver, 3 bronze) World Games, Ly­on France, 2015. 18 medals at Mas­ters games Por­to Ale­gre, Brazil, 2013.

Bad­minton: De­bra O'Con­nor–5 times (1984, 1985, 1990, 1993 and 1995). Caribbean Re­gion­al Bad­minton Con­fed­er­a­tion (CARE­BA­CO). Sin­gle and dou­bles cham­pi­on in 1984, 1985 and 1995. In 1990 and 1993 she was a Triple Crown win­ner, be­ing crowned sin­gles, dou­bles and mixed dou­bles cham­pi­on.

Body Build­ing:

Da­reem Charles, Michael Her­cules

Box­ing:

�2 Claude Noel first world cham­pi­on, Mex­i­can Rodol­fo Gon­za­lez to win the WBA World Light­weight ti­tle, 1981

�2 Leslie Stew­art won the WBA World Light Heavy­weight ti­tle in 1987 de­feat­ing Mar­vin 'pops' John­son

�2 Ria Ram­nar­ine T&T first fe­male world cham­pi­on, de­feat­ed Ana Fer­nan­dez to win the WI­BA Mi­ni Fly­weight World ti­tle, 2005

�2 Giselle Sa­landy mul­ti­ple World cham­pi­on- WBA, WBC and WI­BA mid­dle weight ti­tles

Crick­et: Bri­an Lara world record hold­er for the high­est first class score (501 not out) and high­est test score (400 not out). Sir Learie Con­stan­tine, Jef­fery Stollmey­er, Bri­an Davis, Char­lie Davis, Son­ny Ra­mad­hin, Ger­ry Gomez, Deryck Mur­ray, Bernard Julien, Rangy Nanan, In­shan Ali, Ian Bish­op, Di­nanath Ram­nar­ine, Ann Browne-John, Anisa Mo­hammed, Meris­sa Aguilleira, Joey Carew, Daren Gan­ga, Kieron Pol­lard, Sunil Nar­ine, Dwayne Bra­vo, Daren Bra­vo. T&T Blind and Vi­su­al­ly Im­paired crick­et team–WICB T20 and 40 overs cham­pi­ons 2015.

Cy­cling: Roger Gib­bon, Gene Samuel, Maxwell Cheese­man, Michael Phillips, Hyl­ton "Bar­racu­da" Mitchell, Roger Smart, Njisane Phillip and Emile Abra­ham.

Dis­tance Run­ning: Moses Ranghell, Bernard Mungroo, Michael Alexan­der, Cur­tis Cox, Richard Jones, Lynette "Granny" Luces, Richard Jones and Tonya Nero.

Drag­on Boat Rac­ing: Aqua­holics Drag­on Boat 1st 200m Pre­mier Mixed Cat­e­go­ry at Pan Amer­i­can Club Crew Cham­pi­ons (PAC­CC), Cana­da 2015. 2nd and 3rd in two oth­er events over 500m and 200m re­spec­tive­ly.

Foot­ball: Dwight Yorke won sev­er­al cham­pi­onships in Eng­land and Eu­rope with Man­ches­ter Unit­ed. Alvin Corneal, Bob­by Sookram, Sed­ley Joseph, Lin­coln Phillips, Ever­ald "Gal­ly" Cum­mings, Richard Chi­napoo, David Nahkid, Rus­sell Lat­apy, and Sha­ka His­lop. The 'Strike Squad' 1989, 'So­ca War­riors' 2006, and 'So­ca Princess' 2014.

Golf: Stephen Ames, Car­los 'Sexy' Baynes, Maria Nunes Sachin Ku­mar, Liam Bry­den, Zoe Cor­reia, Ryan Pe­ters, Ys­abelle Lawrence, Sarah Macken­zie

Hock­ey: Stacey Sui Butt, Kwand­wane Browne and Dwain Quan Chan.

Horse Rac­ing: Emile Ram­sam­my, Er­ic 'Colt' Du­ran, Mani­ram 'Boboy' Ma­haraj

Net­ball: T&T was crowned joint World Net­ball Cham­pi­ons with Aus­tralia and New Zealand in 1979, 3rd in Sin­ga­pore 1983, Joint 2nd in Scot­land 1987, 9th in Aus­tralia 2015. Jean Pierre, Janet Bai­ley, Sharon Cas­tana­da, Joelisa Coop­er, Saman­tha Wal­lace

Power­boat Rac­ing: An­drew Lewis, Ken Charles

Spe­cial Olympics: T&T, 48 medals (15 gold, 9 sil­ver and 24 bronze), Spe­cial Olympics World Games, Los An­ge­les, Cal­i­for­nia 2015.

Squash: Col­in Ra­mas­ra, T&T's first pro­fes­sion­al play­er (2007), high­est rank­ing in the world, 148. Joshua Pinard, Kale Wil­son and Richard Hart.

Swim­ming: George Bovell III bronze medal in the 200IM at the 2004 Athens Olympics.

Mul­ti­ple medal­lists at World Cham­pi­onships, FI­NA World Cup, Pan Amer­i­can Games, CAC. Paul Newal­lo, Se­bas­t­ian Padding­ton, Sioban Crop­per, Shan­tol Ince and Dy­lan Carter.

Ta­ble Ten­nis: Mans­ingh Amars­ingh, Derek De­Sil­va, Steve Rag­bir, Sea­mus Clarke, Dex­ter St Louis and Rheann Chung, Aaron Wil­son, Arun Roop­nar­ine and Aleena Ed­wards.

Ten­nis: Lystra Lewis, Al­lan and Lind­say Price, Bev­er­ly Cor­bie, Eliz­a­beth Gib­son, Shane Stone, Ivor Grazette, Olivia Ben­nett, An­neliese Rose, Shenelle Mo­hammed, Solange Skeene, Em­ma Davis, Em­ma-Rose Tre­strail, Emi­ly Lawrence, Nabeel Mo­hammed, Kobe An­drews, Liam Shep­pard, and Aidan Carter.

Shoot­ing: Bert Man­hin and Roger Daniel

Triathlon: Ja­son Good­ing and An­cil Greene

Taek­won­do: Cheryl Sankar stood tall in Taek­won­do.

Weightlift­ing: Rod­ney Wilkes was the coun­try's first medal­list at the Olympics win­ning the sil­ver medal in the feath­er­weight cat­e­go­ry at the 1948 Lon­don Games.

At the 1952 Helsin­ki Games, he won bronze at the same event.

It is ev­i­dent that T&T In­de­pen­dence can al­so be viewed through the ex­cel­lent per­for­mances of its sports­women and sports­men.

Their per­for­mances have con­tin­ued to en­sure that Trinidad and To­ba­go is viewed as a se­ri­ous com­peti­tor at all lev­els of com­pe­ti­tion.

As the so­ci­ety de­vel­op, every ef­fort should be made to con­tin­ue to sup­port the coun­try's sports­women and sports­men in the most ef­fi­cient, ef­fec­tive and trans­par­ent­ly ac­count­able man­ner so that they can re­alise their dreams as well con­tin­ue the rich tra­di­tion of sport­ing suc­cess.