LAU­SANNE–For­mer world box­ing cham­pi­on, T&T box­er Ria Ram­nar­ine was one of eight coach­es to grad­u­ate with ho­n­ours dis­tinc­tion when the In­ter­na­tion­al Coach­ing En­rich­ment Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion Pro­gramme ho­n­oured its class of 2015 in a cer­e­mo­ny held at the In­ter­na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tee head­quar­ters in Lau­sanne, Switzer­land, yes­ter­day.

In ad­di­tion to Ram­nar­ine, the oth­er coach­es were Mar­cel­lo Var­ri­ale from Brazil; Maria Vic­to­ra Echavar­ria from Colom­bia; Stew­art Ve­las­co from El Sal­vador; Ni­gatu Worku An­ga­su from Ethiopia; Shi­ba Mag­gon from In­dia; Eyyad Maghayreh from Jor­dan; and Yang Yu from the USA.The sev­enth edi­tion of the ICECP–an in­ten­sive coach­ing ed­u­ca­tion pro­gramme de­vel­oped by the Unit­ed States Olympic Com­mit­tee, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Delaware and the IOC–in­clud­ed 33 coach­es rep­re­sent­ing five con­ti­nents, 33 coun­tries and 14 sports.

The ICECP is con­duct­ed in part­ner­ship with Olympic Sol­i­dar­i­ty, an IOC pro­gram that pro­vides fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance to Na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tees around the world. Thus far, the ICECP has reached 198 par­tic­i­pants from 23 sports and 87 coun­tries over the sev­en-year his­to­ry of the pro­gramme.

"Con­grat­u­la­tions to the newest class of ICECP grad­u­ates," said USOC CEO Scott Black­mun. "These coach­es rep­re­sent the fu­ture of the Olympic Move­ment, and their com­mit­ment to de­vel­op­ing their per­son­al skillset and ad­vanc­ing the glob­al sports com­mu­ni­ty is ad­mirable."Held at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Delaware; the US Olympic Train­ing Cen­ter in Col­orado Springs, Col­orado; ap­pren­tice­ship sites around the US; and the IOC head­quar­ters, the ICECP be­gan at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Delaware on Sep­tem­ber 20 and was con­duct­ed in four mod­ules.

In the fi­nal mod­ule, par­tic­i­pants pre­sent­ed the projects they com­plet­ed over the course of the pro­gramme–which fo­cused on im­prov­ing coach­ing in­fra­struc­ture in their home coun­tries – to the ICECP aca­d­e­m­ic board, and took part in a for­mal grad­u­a­tion cer­e­mo­ny fea­tur­ing a keynote ad­dress by IOC Sports Di­rec­tor Kit Mc­Connell and Si­mon Toul­son, sec­re­tary gen­er­al of the In­ter­na­tion­al Ca­noe Fed­er­a­tion.

"It was a true ho­n­our to work with the USOC to put on a world-class pro­gram,me" said Dr Matthew Robin­son, di­rec­tor of the ICECP and pro­fes­sor of sport man­age­ment at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Delaware.

"The par­tic­i­pants' ef­forts were in­spi­ra­tional and I know all of them will make im­por­tant con­tri­bu­tions to their sport and the Olympic Move­ment for years to come. We look for­ward to year eight next year and pass­ing the 200 par­tic­i­pant mark. I am hum­bled to work with so many pas­sion­ate peo­ple who con­tribute to the suc­cess of the pro­gramme."

"Par­tic­i­pa­tion in the ICECP was an amaz­ing ex­pe­ri­ence," said Mar­cel­lo Var­ri­ale, a 2015 grad­u­ate from Brazil. "The con­tent I learned at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Delaware and from the USOC staff was in­valu­able. The dif­fer­ence of the ICECP from oth­er pro­grammes is the shar­ing and learn­ing from dif­fer­ent coun­tries and sports, and be­ing able toa pply these ideas to my sport of row­ing. In im­ple­ment­ing my project, I dis­cov­ered theim­por­tance of hav­ing a struc­tured pro­gram. With that, I was able to de­vel­op coach­ing ed­u­ca­tion in a struc­tured man­ner to ben­e­fit the coach­es in my sport and coun­try."

The 2014-15 pro­gramme in­clud­ed coach­es from Amer­i­can Samoa, Aus­tria, An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, Botswana, Brazil, Cam­bo­dia, Cape Verde, Cay­man Is­lands, Peo­ple's Re­pub­lic of Chi­na, Colom­bia, Cook Is­lands, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, El Sal­vador, Ethiopia, Fi­ji, Grena­da, In­dia, Jor­dan, Latvia, The For­mer Yu­goslav Re­pub­lic of Mace­do­nia, Malaysia, Mal­dives, Mozam­bique, Nige­ria, Puer­to Ri­co, Qatar, Ser­bia, St Vin­cent and the Grenadines, Suri­name, Syr­ia, T&T, USA and Ugan­da.

ABOUT ICECP

A pro­gramme of the Unit­ed States Olympic Com­mit­tee, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Delaware and the In­ter­na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tee, the In­ter­na­tion­al Coach­ing En­rich­ment Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion Pro­gramme aims at as­sist­ing na­tion­al-lev­el coach­es in de­vel­op­ing pro­fi­cien­cy in the ar­eas of sport sci­ences, tal­ent iden­ti­fi­ca­tion, ath­lete de­vel­op­ment, safe sport, coach­ing ed­u­ca­tion, coach­ing man­age­ment and grass­roots sport de­vel­op­ment.

The in­tend­ed out­come is for ICECP par­tic­i­pants to re­turn to their coun­tries and serve as coach­es with­in their re­spec­tive sports, while be­com­ing foun­da­tion builders for fu­ture coach­es and ath­letes, and spread­ing Olympic spir­it.