Je­lani Beck­les

Na­tion­al rug­by play­er Kwanieze John has been se­lect­ed as the Chef de Mis­sion for the T&T team at the up­com­ing sec­ond Sum­mer Youth Olympics in Nan­jing, Chi­na from Au­gust 16-28.

At a press con­fer­ence held yes­ter­day at the T&T Olympic House in Port of Spain, pres­i­dent of the T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC) Bri­an Lewis, was pleased to an­nounce John as the first ac­tive na­tion­al ath­lete and youngest in the his­to­ry of T&T to be se­lect­ed for the po­si­tion.

He said, "It's the first time that an ac­tive na­tion­al ath­lete will be giv­en the tremen­dous re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, op­por­tu­ni­ty and ho­n­our to lead a T&T olympic com­mit­tee del­e­ga­tion to a ma­jor games. We are very con­fi­dent that it is keep­ing with our em­pha­sis on youth, our em­pha­sis on mo­ti­vat­ing young women and young girls to be in­volved in sport."

John, 25, who was the young am­bas­sador for T&T at the 2010 games, is ready for the chal­lenge. She stat­ed: "It is an ho­n­our for me to be ap­point­ed Chef De Mis­sion, as Mr Lewis ex­pressed its a tremen­dous re­spon­si­bilty and one in which I ac­cept­ed with ease."

The role of the Chef De Mis­sion is to help the team pre­pare for the games, en­sur­ing each ath­lete's coach and man­ag­er is up-to-date with olympic in­for­ma­tion. John be­lieves that her four years ex­pe­ri­ence on the olympic com­mit­tee will as­sist her with the role as Chef De Mis­sion.

A team of 13 T&T ath­letes in six sports will trav­el to Chi­na in Au­gust. In the first edi­tion of the Youth Olympics in 2010, T&T swim­mer Chris­t­ian Homer won gold.

One of top ath­letes on the cur­rent team will be swim­mer Dy­lan Carter, who is com­ing off a suc­cess­ful sea­son. Carter won sil­ver in the boys 50m but­ter­fly at the FI­NA World Ju­nior Swim­ming Cham­pi­onships in Dubai, last Au­gust. T&T will al­so have rep­re­sen­ta­tives in track and field, beach vol­ley­ball, triathlon, ta­ble ten­nis and gym­nas­tics.

Sup­port­ing John at the youth games, will be Jean­nette Small, who will act as T&T's young am­bas­sador. Small's du­ty is to get the ath­letes in­volved in ac­tiv­i­ties, such as the cul­ture and ed­u­ca­tion pro­gramme. Small, who stud­ied sports man­age­ment at UWI, said she is look­ing for­ward to the ex­pe­ri­ence.

Oth­er mem­bers of the team in­cludes Tracey Pierre, Asha De Fre­itas and T&T Olympic ath­lete Cleopa­tra Borel. Pierre will act as the sports nu­tri­tion­ist, en­sur­ing a healthy di­et for the ath­letes, while De Fre­itas will be the team's cer­ti­fied ath­let­ic train­er, fo­cus­ing on in­jury man­age­ment and in­jury pre­ven­tion. Borel will help in de­vel­op­ing T&T's ath­lete com­mis­sion.