Je­lani Beck­les

Pres­i­dent of the T&T Gym­nas­tics Fed­er­a­tion (TTGF) David Mar­quez ad­mit­ted the head of del­e­ga­tion of the T&T Gym­nas­tics team in the Rio Test event, Nicole Fuentes, was not prop­er­ly con­sult­ed be­fore pulling The­ma Williams out of the event but the fed­er­a­tion had to make an in­formed de­ci­sion.

At a press con­fer­ence at the Cham­ber of Com­merce, West­moor­ing, yes­ter­day when Mar­quez was asked whether Fuentes was giv­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty to say if Williams was un­fit to com­pete be­fore send­ing Marisa Dick to the test event, he said: "No, she didn't."

He ex­plained that Williams' coach, John Ged­dert, sent an email late, stat­ing she was strug­gling in train­ing.

"Be­cause of that email, and we got it very late, we had to act on it. It was the best thing for the ath­lete and al­so for the coun­try," Mar­quez added.

It was re­port­ed that ac­cord­ing to the play­er's con­tract the head of del­e­ga­tion, the phys­io­ther­a­pist, coach and ath­lete must be con­sult­ed be­fore the ath­lete can be re­moved.

Mar­quez ex­plained that the board had to make an in­formed de­ci­sion.

"We all read John Ged­dert's email say­ing that The­ma had an in­jury and we made a group de­ci­sion. We tried to con­tact every­one on the board but it was late in the night and we got the ma­jor­i­ty to agree.

"Be­cause of what the email said we had to make a de­ci­sion. The ath­lete was at risk and the ath­lete was not 100 per cent fit. It was a hard de­ci­sion but we had to make the best de­ci­sion.

"We tried to get Ged­dert on his cell­phone and ho­tel room but was not suc­cess­ful so we sent an email ex­plain­ing the sit­u­a­tion. We thought we would be putting the ath­lete in dan­ger. It hurt her (Williams) and we knew. To get to the Olympics it is very hard. They trained their whole life for this," Mar­quez added.

Dick said she was proud to put T&T on the map in gym­nas­tics.

"I am re­al­ly proud that T&T will be rep­re­sent­ed in the Olympics whether it's my­self or The­ma. Gym­nas­tics is a grow­ing sport in T&T and the Olympics is the biggest event in sport. For T&T to be rep­re­sent­ed in the Olympics is just re­al­ly ex­cit­ing," she said.

On all the neg­a­tive at­ten­tion gym­nas­tics has been get­ting in the me­dia Dick added: "This is tough, it gets in your head. You have to fo­cus on what is im­por­tant and what is im­por­tant is com­pet­ing at the Olympics for T&T and putting us on the world map."

She said Williams has sup­port­ed her. "Yes she sup­port­ed me in Rio and I sup­port­ed her af­ter Worlds. I was heart­bro­ken that I would not be the one go­ing to the Olympics but I was so sup­port­ive of her be­cause it's T&T that will be go­ing to the Olympics it's not my­self or The­ma it's T&T. We have both been sup­port­ive of each oth­er just be­cause we know it's not just us it's about the coun­try," Dick ex­plained.