Anand Ram­per­sad

As the coun­try cel­e­brates 52 years of In­de­pen­dence, it is time­ly to re­mind our­selves of some of the out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tions of our sports­women and sports­men in their re­spec­tive sport­ing dis­ci­plines lo­cal­ly, re­gion­al­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.

In ath­let­ics, Hasley Craw­ford won the 100 me­tres gold medal at the Mon­tre­al Olympics in 1976, 36 years af­ter, Keshorn Wal­cott be­came the coun­try's sec­ond Olympic gold medal­list when he won the javelin event at the Lon­don Olympics in 2012. Je­hue Gor­don won gold in the men's 400 me­tres hur­dle at the IAAF World Cham­pi­onship in Moscow, Rus­sia in 2014. Oth­er no­table track and field ath­letes are Cleopa­tra Bor­rel, Michelle-Lee Ahye, Wen­dell Mot­t­ley, Ato Boldon, Richard Thomp­son, Lalonde Gor­don, and Richard Thomp­son.

This coun­try has pro­duced four box­ing world cham­pi­ons. Claude Noel be­came this coun­try's first world cham­pi­on in 1981, when he de­feat­ed Mex­i­can Rodol­fo Gon­za­lez to win the WBA World Light­weight ti­tle. Leslie Stew­art won the WBA World Light Heavy­weight ti­tle in 1987 de­feat­ing Mar­vin 'Pops' John­son at the Jean Pierre Com­plex. Ria Ram­nar­ine be­came the coun­try's first fe­male world cham­pi­on when she de­feat­ed Ana Fer­nan­dez in 2005 at the Jean Pierre Com­plex to win the WI­BA Mi­ni Fly­weight World ti­tle. At the time of her shock­ing, un­time­ly death in 2009, Giselle Sa­landy was a mul­ti­ple World cham­pi­on hold­ing the WBA, WBC and WI­BA mid­dle weight ti­tles.

De­bra O'Con­nor could be con­sid­ered as one of the best bad­minton play­ers of all time in T&T and the Caribbean. The four-time sports­woman of the year won the Caribbean Re­gion­al Bad­minton Con­fed­er­a­tion sin­gles ti­tle on five oc­ca­sions (1984, 1985, 1990, 1993 and 1995). She was al­so 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.

Cy­cling has pro­duced out­stand­ing rid­ers such as Roger Gib­bon, Gene Samuel, Maxwell Cheese­man, Michael Phillips, Hyl­ton "Bar­racu­da" Mitchell, Roger Smart, Njisane Phillip and Emile Abra­ham.

Bri­an Lara, is by far the great­est crick­eter this coun­try has pro­duced. The world record hold­er for the high­est first class score (501 not out) and high­est test score (400 not out) con­quered all bowlers and thrilled the crick­et­ing world with su­perb tim­ing and stroke play. Oth­er note­wor­thy crick­eters are Sir Learie Con­stan­tine, Jef­fery Stollmey­er, Son­ny Ra­mad­hin, Ger­ry Gomez, Deryck Mur­ray, Rangy Nanan, In­shan Ali, Ian Bish­op, Ann Browne-John and Anisa Mo­hammed.

Dwight Yorke is the most cel­e­brat­ed foot­baller, hav­ing won sev­er­al cham­pi­onships in Eng­land and Eu­rope with Man­ches­ter Unit­ed. Oth­er out­stand­ing foot­ballers from T&T are 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, have all giv­en the pop­u­la­tion a lot be proud Trin­bag­o­ni­ans.

Stephen Ames, Car­los "Sexy" Baynes and Maria Nunes have all rep­re­sent­ed the golf with greater dis­tinc­tion.

Hock­ey has pro­vid­ed play­ers such as Stacey-Ann Sui Butts, Kwand­wane Browne and Dwain Quan Chan.

T&T was crowned joint World Net­ball Cham­pi­ons with Aus­tralia and New Zealand in 1979. Dur­ing the 1980s the "Ca­lyp­so Queens" dom­i­nat­ed the Caribbean cham­pi­onship and were among the top five coun­tries in the world. Some of the out­stand­ing net­ballers of the past are Jean Pierre, Janet Bai­ley, Sher­ill Pe­ters and Sharon Cas­tana­da.

Road run­ning has be­come a very pop­u­lar sport in re­cent years. Some of the out­stand­ing road run­ners have been Moses Ranghell, Bernard Mungroo, Michael Alexan­der, Cur­tis Cox, Richard Jones, Lynette "Granny" Luces, Richard Jones and Tonya Nero.

George Bovell III is the coun­try's most cel­e­brat­ed swim­mer. His great­est ac­com­plish­ment has been win­ning the bronze medal in the 200IM at the 2004 Athens Olympics. Oth­er no­table swim­mers over the years are Paul Newal­lo, Se­bas­t­ian Padding­ton, Sioban Crop­per and Shan­tol Ince.

Some of the out­stand­ing ta­ble ten­nis play­ers are Mans­ingh Amars­ingh, Derek De­Sil­va, Steve Rag­bir, Sea­mus Clarke, Dex­ter St Louis and Rheann Chung. Ten­nis has pro­vid­ed play­ers in the cal­i­bre of Lystra Lewis, Al­lan and Lind­say Price, Bev­er­ly Cor­bie and Shane Stone.

Bert Man­hin and Roger Daniel have dom­i­nat­ed the sport of shoot­ing, while Ja­son Good­ing and An­cil Greene have been out­stand­ing triath­letes. Cheryl Sankar stood tall in Taek­won­do.

Weightlifter 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 the coun­try's In­de­pen­dence can al­so be mea­sured by the con­tri­bu­tion that sports­women and sports­men have made not on­ly to their re­spec­tive sports but al­so in en­sur­ing that the rest of the world know that T&T is a force to be reck­oned with.

As we con­tin­ue to grow as a so­ci­ety, every ef­fort must be made to sup­port our sports­women and sports­men.