JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Tuesday, February 25, 2025

Things That Mat­ter

Big cash incentives for T&T medallists

by

20151026

The medal bonus for Rio 2016 Olympics in Brazil will be US$10,000 for an in­di­vid­ual gold medal, US$8,000 for sil­ver and US$5,000 for bronze. While in the re­lay it will be US$20,000 for gold, US$15,000 for sil­ver and US$10,000 for the re­lay bronze. Many peo­ple have fo­cused on track and field in the con­text of the re­lay but the re­lay bonus will al­so ap­ply for swim­ming and the team sprint in cy­cling.

Giv­en that the con­cept of a medal bonus was on­ly in­tro­duced for the first time in T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC) his­to­ry for this year's Toron­to Pan Amer­i­can Games what some con­sid­er to be a hefty in­crease in the dol­lar amount for the Olympics has come as a sur­prise.

The Olympic Games is the pin­na­cle event in world sport. Win­ning an Olympic gold medal and be­com­ing an Olympic cham­pi­on is the dream.

The TTOC, as the sole and ex­clu­sive au­thor­i­ty and rights hold­er for the Olympics and all mul­ti sport events sanc­tioned by the In­ter­na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tee (IOC), must set the tone in re­spect of en­sur­ing that both the in­trin­sic and ex­trin­sic pres­tige, sta­tus and re­al­i­ty of the ac­co­lade of Olympic cham­pi­on is main­tained.

Some 10,500 ath­letes will trav­el to Rio with the dream of climb­ing the podi­um to re­ceive one of the 305 medals up for grabs.Great acheive­ments don't usu­al­ly just hap­pen, they start with am­bi­tious goals. At the TTOC we must proud­ly set am­bi­tious goals know­ing that in do­ing so we will de­fy his­to­ry.

There are larg­er na­tions with larg­er pop­u­la­tion num­bers and more mon­ey to spend and they are pre­pared to in­vest mil­lions of dol­lars in prepa­ra­tion, in­no­va­tion, tech­nol­o­gy and the suc­cess of their ath­letes and teams for Olympic podi­um suc­cess.And as such there are many who feel that set­ting a medi­um term goal of 10 or more Olympic gold medals by the year 2024 is a fan­ta­sy.

But those who doubt that the quest for Olympic gold is a se­ri­ous pur­suit are un­der­valu­ing first­ly the enor­mous po­ten­tial and tal­ent of the ath­letes in T&T.The Olympic Games is the World's biggest sport­ing event.T&T in win­ning to date 18 Olympic medals since mak­ing its Olympic de­but in 1948 has shown the Olympic world that the twin-is­land re­pub­lic with a pop­u­la­tion of 1.3 mil­lion that we can shine on the big stage.

T&T can build on those 18 Olympic medals.We have in T&T, ath­letes who are brave, am­bi­tious and tal­ent­ed. What they need is the sup­port of those who sin­cere­ly be­lieve in them.The 10 to 15 years that it takes to de­vel­op in­to an Olympic or world cham­pi­on is a jour­ney.

Just as the ath­lete is re­quired to show for­ti­tude, re­silience, per­se­ver­ance, courage and an in­domitable will and de­ter­mi­na­tion, the same char­ac­ter­is­tics must be shown by those who pro­fess to care about our ath­letes.There are those who un­der­es­ti­mate the sup­port that is need­ed and ques­tion the in­vest­ment re­quired.

That the coun­try and the peo­ple of T&T are the ben­e­fi­cia­ries of the pa­tri­ot­ic ef­forts of our sports­men and women is or should by now be un­ques­tioned.Our elite sports­men and women make in­cred­i­ble per­son­al and ca­reer sac­ri­fices in ser­vice of T&T.

The two Olympic gold medals won by T&T at the pres­ti­gious Olympic Games unit­ed the twin-is­land re­pub­lic. The pos­i­tive im­age and in­spi­ra­tion and mo­ti­va­tion­al vibes touched chil­dren, youth and young peo­ple across com­munties, race, re­li­gion and class bar­ri­ers.

�2 Bri­an Lewis is the Pres­i­dent of the T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee. The views ex­pressed are not nec­es­sar­i­ly those of the Olympic Com­mit­tee. Sup­port #10Golds24 Ath­lete Wel­fare and Prepa­ra­tion Fund make your do­na­tions to any branch of Sco­tia­bank ac­count 171188 . The NL­CB Go­ing for Gold In­stant Mon­ey Game is ded­i­cat­ed to sup­port­ing the Olympic Dream.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored