Trinidad and To­ba­go Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC) pres­i­dent Lar­ry Ro­many be­lieves a drop off in sport par­tic­i­pa­tion in the na­tion's school could re­sult in T&T fail­ing to medal at the 2020 and 2024 Olympic Games.

Dur­ing his keynote ad­dress at the TTOC 18th an­nu­al award cer­e­mo­ny at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA), Port of Spain last Sat­ur­day, Ro­many voiced con­cerns about the is­sue point­ing to a need to ar­rest the de­cline in par­tic­i­pa­tion lev­els among the school pop­u­la­tion .

Ro­many said that the TTOC is col­lab­o­rat­ing with the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, and has start­ed an ini­tia­tive to mea­sure the obe­si­ty of every child in pri­ma­ry schools. The da­ta from the project, be­ing con­duct­ed by John Hop­kins Uni­ver­si­ty, will be analysed.

"If we want to sus­tain podi­um suc­cess, the prob­lem can't be swept un­der the ta­ble. When peo­ple talk about the is­sues fac­ing sport there is a lot of mis­di­ag­no­sis but that hap­pens when you look at flawed in­for­ma­tion. The wrong peo­ple can con­fuse the is­sue. It's gen­er­a­tional and will re­quire ac­cep­tance that it will take 15 to 20 years to solve the prob­lem but the is­sues must be ad­dressed now "

Mean­while the TTOC's sport ad­min­is­tra­tion course will con­tin­ue in 2013. Last year the TTOC cer­ti­fied 150 young peo­ple who suc­cess­ful com­plet­ed the IOC cer­ti­fi­ca­tion course.

Six cours­es were held last year. The TTOC plans to con­duct the same num­ber this year. The first course starts on Tues­day. "Thats an­oth­er pri­or­i­ty. Ed­u­ca­tion and build­ing the hu­man re­source ca­pac­i­ty with­in the na­tion­al sport or­gan­i­sa­tions that are af­fil­i­at­ed to the TTOC. We have al­so ex­tend­ed the course to com­mu­ni­ty clubs and sport or­gan­i­sa­tions." said Ro­many.