An­dre Bap­tise

Brazil has al­ways been fa­mous for its mul­ti­tude of women. Now Rio 2016 is scor­ing points for its high preva­lence of women ath­letes due to an evo­lu­tion of most sports, no longer re­strict­ed to spe­cif­ic gen­ders.

More women will com­pete in the Olympics in 2016 than in any oth­er year in his­to­ry, da­ta from the In­ter­na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tee shows.

In Rio, 45 per cent of all com­peti­tors will be women. That's more than dou­ble the fig­ure from 1976, just 40 years ago. There will be some 4,700 women com­peti­tors of 10,444 to­tal ath­letes–a 6.8 per cent in­crease since 2000.

While there were on­ly two such Olympic sports in 1900, the 2016 Olympics will fea­ture a record-set­ting 28 women's sports.

In T&T, every­one is wait­ing anx­ious­ly to see how its record 11 women will per­form.

The an­tic­i­pat­ed per­for­mance of Michelle Lee Ahye in the 100 me­tres and her ex­pect­ed run as part of Team TTO re­lay team in the 4x100 me­tres, are be­ing ea­ger­ly await­ed.

She is part of a re­lay team that won bronze in world cham­pi­onships last year and is hop­ing to bring home T&T's first gold medal for women in the women's 4x100.

Lee Ahye was part of the squad that fin­ished fourth in the sprint re­lay at the 2011 World Cham­pi­onships, and in which the team ran a na­tion­al record time of 42.50 sec­onds.

Most may re­call that al­though she was born in Port of Spain, she lives in Care­nage with her moth­er, Raquel, who has been cru­cial in her de­vel­op­ment as a woman and ath­lete.

Lee Ahye won the na­tion­al 100m ti­tles in 2013 and 2014. In 2013, she trav­eled to Moscow, Rus­sia for the IAAF World Out­door Cham­pi­onships. In 2014, she went to Sopot, Poland for the 60 me­tres dash at the World In­door Cham­pi­onships where she set a na­tion­al record by run­ning 7.10 sec­onds when plac­ing sixth. Then in 2014, Lee Ahye ran a per­son­al best 10.85 over 100 me­tres to earn a rank­ing of third in the world by Track and Field News.

Lee Ahye won the 100 me­tres at the Lau­sanne Di­a­mond League meet in Ju­ly 2014, clock­ing 10.98. Not to be satisi­fied, she jour­neyed to the Glas­gow Di­a­mond League meet in Scot­land and de­feat­ed de­fend­ing Olympic cham­pi­on Shelly-Ann Fras­er Pyrce of Ja­maica. She will be one of the ath­letes up­on whom T&T will be plac­ing high ex­pec­ta­tions.

Nev­er to be un­der­es­ti­mat­ed is Cleopa­tra Borel.

Borel was born on the oth­er side of Trinidad, in Ma­yaro. She start­ed out as a run­ner but field events was her pas­sion.

As a teen, she moved to the USA to at­tend uni­ver­si­ty where she trained in shot put which be­came her spe­cial­ty. She al­so par­tic­i­pat­ed in ham­mer throw.

Borel has com­pet­ed in three Olympics and in the 2012 Lon­don Games, she threw 18.36 me­tres. She just failed to get to the fi­nals but her strength knows no lim­it and she could be T&T's first woman medal­list at these Games.

And there is Khal­i­fa St Fort, who is be­ing coached by four-time Olympic medal­ist Ato Boldon and who is al­so sched­uled to com­pete in 4x100 me­tres re­lay.

The faith­ful and re­li­able Kel­ly Ann Bap­tiste and Se­moy Hack­ett from To­ba­go, de­spite var­i­ous dif­fi­cul­ties, as well as Kai Selvon are all ex­pect­ed to do their part to make Team TTO proud.