RACHAEL THOMP­SON-KING

rachael.king@guardian.co.tt

Sprint­er Michelle-Lee Ahye has al­ready achieved so much for T&T and though it has not been the smoothest path to suc­cess, her pas­sion to rep­re­sent this coun­try is un­wa­ver­ing.

She be­came the first woman from T&T to win a Com­mon­wealth gold medal with vic­to­ry in the women's 100 me­tres, is the reign­ing na­tion­al sprint cham­pi­on and is a for­mer CARIF­TA 100m cham­pi­on.

Run­ning is clear­ly in the blood of Ahye, who com­petes in the 100m and 200m and she wants to con­tin­ue to give, so come Sun­day, the 26-year-old will share her ex­pe­ri­ences and ex­per­tise with some 200 chil­dren at the Michelle-Lee Ahye Coach­ing and Fam­i­ly Day event.

The na­tion­al sprint star is team­ing up with T&T Ath­letes’ Foun­da­tion to host the event at the De­fence Force Head­quar­ters on Air­ways Road, Ch­aguara­mas start­ing from 10 am.

Afeisha Wright of the Foun­da­tion said one of the main goals is to help up-and-com­ing ath­letes, which Ahye has been over the years but de­cid­ed on this new ap­proach to fur­ther reach the bud­ding track and field and sport­ing stars in T&T.

"Michelle want­ed to do more than just do­nat­ing equip­ment, gear or cash to ath­letes as she has done over the years," said Wright. "We de­cid­ed to in­volved the young ath­letes through coach­ing and get­ting them more in­volved in sports.”

The fo­cus will be on ath­letes be­tween the ages of sev­en and 14 and there is a spe­cif­ic rea­son for the tar­get group.

"The aim of tar­get­ing young ath­letes in the Pri­ma­ry schools lev­el, to get them in­to sports ear­ly on so when they get to the Sec­ondary lev­el, they will be stronger," said Wright of the up­com­ing Fam­i­ly Day, which will pro­vide fun ways to build core skills as par­tic­i­pants will not on­ly en­gage in track and field but al­so foot­ball, crick­et, jump rope along with much more.

Join­ing Ahye, who is al­ready in the coun­try, on the spe­cial day, which is al­so due in part to Gatorade, Blue Wa­ters, Trop­ics, Fit Ad­dicts Move­ment and V8, will be na­tion­al men's 200m cham­pi­on Kyle Greaux, women's sprint­er Re­yare Thomas, Par­a­lympic cham­pi­on Akeem Stew­art and javelin throw­er Shakeil Wait­he, to name a few, who un­der­stand Ahye's dri­ve to help young ath­letes.

"Michelle al­so wants the young ath­letes to know who are the na­tion­al greats and to meet some of their he­roes," said Wright, who shared that the chil­dren will get to in­ter­act with qual­i­fied coach­es from the Na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion of Ath­let­ics Ad­min­is­tra­tions (NAAA) and have ses­sions with foot­ball and crick­et coach­es at the in­au­gur­al event.