Na­tion­al gym­nast Maris­sa Dick was among 11 T&T ath­letes re­ceiv­ing Elite Ath­lete Fund­ing from the Min­is­ter of Sport and Youth and Af­fairs Dar­ryl Smith at the Min­istry's head of­fice on Aber­crom­by Street, Port-of-Spain, on Tues­day.

Dick, along with fel­low na­tion­al gym­nast The­ma Williams, were un­for­tu­nate­ly un­der neg­a­tive scruti­ny from the T&T pub­lic af­ter se­mi-nude pic­tures of the pair were cir­cu­lat­ed on so­cial me­dia in Feb­ru­ary.

The Min­istry dis­trib­uted a to­tal of $1,229,302 to Cana­da based Dick along with swim­mers George Bovell and Shan­ntol Ince, pis­tol shoot­er Roger Daniel, track and field ath­letes Lalonde Gor­don, De­on Lendore, Sparkle McK­night, Josanne Lu­cas, Jovon Top­pin and Ay­o­dele Taffe, and cy­clist Kwe­si Browne.

Thus far, the to­tal amount of funds dis­bursed by the Min­istry of Sport and Youth Af­fairs is $2, 629, 302, af­ter $1.4 mil­lion was pre­sent­ed to ath­letes ear­li­er this year at a func­tion held at the VIP Lounge of the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um.

Para Olympics swim­mer Ince, ex­pressed her grat­i­tude to the Min­istry for her fund­ing. She in­di­cat­ed that fund­ing is nec­es­sary to as­sist her with swim­ming and gym fees and nu­tri­tion to name a few of her com­mit­ments. She cred­its the Min­istry with its quick ac­tion to sup­port ath­letes and their needs. Ince in­di­cat­ed her ex­cite­ment for the open­ing of the Na­tion­al Aquat­ic Cen­tre in Cou­va and for the new ini­tia­tive of the Min­istry to open pub­lic swim­ming pools on week­ends. She said the Rio Test qual­i­fiers are next on her agen­da. Min­is­ter Smith ex­pressed that Ince is an in­spi­ra­tion to all young peo­ple and T&T is proud of her for rep­re­sent­ing her coun­try well.

In ear­ly April more elite ath­letes are ex­pect­ed to re­ceive fund­ing for their prepa­ra­tions to­ward the Rio Olympics 2016.

Min­is­ter Smith con­grat­u­lat­ed all the ath­letes, and looks for­ward to a suc­cess­ful Olympic Games.

The Elite Ath­lete As­sis­tance Pro­gramme (EAAP) was es­tab­lished in 2006. The aim of the EAAP is to pro­vide fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance to out­stand­ing T&T ath­letes in Olympic sports, in sup­port of their prepa­ra­tion for and par­tic­i­pa­tion in in­ter­na­tion­al com­pe­ti­tions.