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.

Monday, January 13, 2025

'Pan on de podium' at Paris Olympic Games is a reality

by

Brian Lewis
216 days ago
20240611

"Pan on de Podi­um." The sig­nif­i­cance of the his­toric play­ing of the steel­pan ver­sion of the na­tion­al an­them at an Olympic Games medal cer­e­mo­ny is a trea­sured mo­ment for pan lovers. It was the first time in Olympic his­to­ry.

The na­tion­al an­them played on pan when­ev­er a Team TTO ath­lete or team won a gold medal at all Games un­der the T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC)/T&T Com­mon­wealth Games As­so­ci­a­tion TTC­GA was a goal set ear­ly in my first term (2013-2017) as TTOC and TTC­GA pres­i­dent.

Pan on de Podi­um his­to­ry was made on Ju­ly 5, 2022, when the of­fi­cial record­ed steel­pan ver­sion of the na­tion­al an­them was played dur­ing the Olympic gold medal re-al­lo­ca­tion cer­e­mo­ny held in Lau­sanne, Switzer­land, for the 2008 men’s 4 x100 me­tres re­lay team.

Get­ting the In­ter­na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tee (IOC) to ap­prove the use of the pan an­them—Pan on de Podi­um—wasn’t sim­ple.

The goal back then was to get the steel­pan ver­sion of the na­tion­al an­them played at Olympic medal cer­e­monies. An im­por­tant glob­al recog­ni­tion for our na­tion­al in­stru­ment. That, the IOC even­tu­al­ly agreed is to the cred­it of cur­rent IOC pres­i­dent Thomas Bach.

Note­wor­thy, the pan ver­sion of the na­tion­al an­them was ap­proved to be played at medal cer­e­monies at the Com­mon­wealth Games, Pan Am (Pan Amer­i­can) and CAC (Cen­tral Amer­i­ca and Caribbean) Games in 2018.

In Jan­u­ary 2020, the land­mark IOC ap­proval was re­ceived. Their strict pro­to­cols were met in­clud­ing of­fi­cial sanc­tion from the gov­ern­ment of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Then Min­is­ter of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, Cul­ture and The Arts Dr Nyan Gads­by Dol­ly pro­vid­ed: (1) The re­quired cor­re­spon­dence that sat­is­fied In­tel­lec­tu­al Prop­er­ty con­cerns; (2) ap­proved the Na­tion­al Steel Sym­pho­ny Or­ches­tra (NSSO) un­der the di­rec­tion of Akua Lei­th to do the of­fi­cial record­ed ver­sion. Thanks to the Akua Lei­th-led NSSO En­sem­ble the IOC was sat­is­fied with all as­pects of the world stan­dard qual­i­ty of the record­ed ver­sion.

Why the steel pan – bred, born and grown right here ac­cord­ing to his­to­ri­ans cir­ca 1939 – is still not em­braced by some has been de­bat­ed for decades.

Nonethe­less, the op­por­tu­ni­ty to show­case the steel­pan through sport is one that all na­tion­al sports or­gan­i­sa­tions that car­ry the red, white and black and the des­ig­na­tion T&T should be ob­lig­at­ed even man­dat­ed to pur­sue.

In 1992, for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning in an In­de­pen­dence Day mes­sage said the steel­pan would be des­ig­nat­ed the na­tion­al in­stru­ment.

On Fri­day (June 7, 2024), the Na­tion­al Mu­si­cal In­stru­ment Bill (2024) was laid in the Par­lia­ment in the name of Min­is­ter of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts Ran­dall Mitchell. It has been a long time com­ing.

Na­tion­al Sports Or­gan­i­sa­tions and gov­ern­ing bod­ies, who haven't as yet fol­lowed the TTOC and made a for­mal re­quest to their rel­e­vant In­ter­na­tion­al, Con­ti­nen­tal and Re­gion­al Sport Fed­er­a­tions, that (1) TTO not TRI be used to iden­ti­fy Team Trinidad and To­ba­go, and (2) that on all oc­ca­sions - the of­fi­cial pan ver­sion of the TTO an­them be played should do so.

The orig­i­nal plan for Trinidad and To­ba­go's his­toric host­ing of the Com­mon­wealth Youth Games in­clud­ed the record­ing of the na­tion­al an­them of all the par­tic­i­pat­ing Com­mon­wealth na­tions and ter­ri­to­ries. Pre­de­ter­mined in their at­ti­tudes by their place in the so­cial or­der. The CYG2023 LOC de­cid­ed that it was cost­ing too much mon­ey. Thought­less­ly iron­ic.

An op­por­tu­ni­ty lost nev­er to be re­gained.

In 2023, ac­knowl­edg­ing that the steel­pan pro­motes in­clu­sive so­ci­eties, sus­tain­able com­mu­ni­ties and the cre­ative econ­o­my and can have a pos­i­tive im­pact on men­tal health and well-be­ing, gen­der equal­i­ty and youth em­pow­er­ment, the UN Gen­er­al As­sem­bly pro­claimed Au­gust 11 as World Steel­pan Day.

What day was the CYG2023 clos­ing cer­e­mo­ny? Au­gust 11, 2023.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored