The XXXI­II (33rd) Olympiad be­gins to­day in Paris, France, with the usu­al cel­e­bra­to­ry open­ing of the Games, which have be­come not mere­ly rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the na­tions of the world tak­ing part but some­thing of an equal­is­ing ground for na­tions large and small, pow­er­ful and those with­out mil­i­tary and eco­nom­ic might and pres­tige in a world civil­i­sa­tion, to meet and com­pete.

The T&T team will have 17 ath­letes across three ma­jor sports: ath­let­ics, which has tra­di­tion­al­ly been our strongest field of com­pe­ti­tion at the Games; cy­cling, in which we have had world-class per­form­ers over sev­er­al Games; and in the swim­ming pool amongst the big swim­ming na­tions, Aus­tralia and the USA.

In this year’s com­pe­ti­tion, from this point, it seems that our great­est chance of reach­ing the semi­fi­nals and fi­nals with the hope of win­ning medals will rest with our Olympic Gold and Bronze medal­list javelin throw­er, Keshorn Wal­cott, our 200 me­tres spe­cial­ist (who al­so per­forms in the 400), Jereem Richards and cy­clist Nicholas Paul, the lat­ter who has been per­form­ing ex­cep­tion­al­ly well at a num­ber of oth­er in­ter­na­tion­al games.

But we do not for­get Michelle-Lee Ahye in the Women’s 100-me­tre sprint and swim­mer Dy­lan Carter in the 50 and 100-me­tre events in the pool. When they per­form well, even in in­stances when they do not win medals but reach to semi­fi­nal and fi­nal events, that fills us with pride know­ing that they are amongst the best in the world. The con­tem­po­rary, how­ev­er, in events such as the Olympic Games, must nev­er so over­shad­ow our past that the won­der­ful feats of our ath­letes of pre­vi­ous gen­er­a­tions are for­got­ten. We shall not for­get the great Rod­ney Wilkes, an atom of a man who rose to great­ness in weightlift­ing in 1948 and 1952, win­ning bronze and sil­ver long be­fore we be­came a na­tion. At times such as the present, we must al­so re­call the great achieve­ments of track ath­letes from Wen­dell Mot­t­ley (Sil­ver, Bronze in Tokyo 1964), Ed­win Roberts (Bronze), and the great 4X400 yards and me­tres teams.

Our first Olympic Gold medal­list Hase­ly Craw­ford, who won in Mon­tre­al in 1976; Ato Boldon (Bronze and Sil­ver in 1996 and 2000); Keshorn Wal­cott (Gold and Bronze in 2012 and 2016 re­spec­tive­ly); and the 4X100 me­tres cham­pi­ons of the 2008 Games of Em­manuel Cal­len­der, Ke­ston Bled­man, Marc Burns, and Richard “Tor­pe­do” Thomp­son, with the last named al­so cap­tur­ing Sil­ver in the 2008 100 me­tres event, sec­ond on­ly to unar­guably the great­est sprint­er of all time, Ja­maican Us­ain Bolt.

We there­fore have a proud record, not on­ly as a small coun­try but hav­ing won and placed in the top three in pres­tige events as list­ed above. It cer­tain­ly is that we do not and can­not be ex­pect­ed to chal­lenge the great ath­let­ic coun­tries of the world, the USA, Rus­sia, Chi­na, and Great Britain, amongst them, but giv­en our size and re­sources, we are not dis­placed as a coun­try whose ath­letes have done well when com­pet­ing against the best in the world.

With the two weeks-plus ahead filled with in­ter­na­tion­al tele­vi­sion cov­er­age of the Games, win, lose or draw, in a man­ner of speak­ing, we shall be ful­ly oc­cu­pied in en­joy­ing the out­comes, con­nect­ing too with the great­est of present-day ath­letes from around the world. The Games will sure­ly be a won­der­ful dis­trac­tion, even for the mo­ment, from the present painful and dispir­it­ing hor­rors of war and its dead­ly and de­hu­man­is­ing con­se­quences. En­joy and cel­e­brate!