RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

From the mo­ment she could walk, sev­en-year-old Atarah Bachan was al­ways in mo­tion, kick­ing a ball, swing­ing a bat, or throw­ing stones at the man­go tree in the back­yard. Her love for sports was ev­i­dent.

To­day, that en­er­gy has trans­lat­ed in­to an im­pres­sive sport­ing jour­ney that has al­ready seen her win three sil­ver medals in one week. Her dream? To one day rep­re­sent T&T on the in­ter­na­tion­al stage in ei­ther foot­ball or ten­nis.

Her moth­er, Daniela Brook­er-Bachan, re­called Atarah’s ear­ly fas­ci­na­tion with ath­let­ics.

“As par­ents, we no­ticed some­thing dif­fer­ent about her. She wasn’t just play­ing—she was com­pet­ing. By the age of three, she was al­ready try­ing to do cart­wheels,” she said.

Atarah’s fa­ther, Stephen Bachan, added that their ap­proach was al­ways about ex­po­sure: “We in­tro­duced her to var­i­ous sports—crick­et, swim­ming, foot­ball, chess, track and field, and ten­nis—just to see what she en­joyed most.”

As Brook­er-Bachan packed up lunch­es to take her fam­i­ly to a bik­ing tour­na­ment in Ch­aguara­mas, she spoke about how spots had giv­en her chil­dren fo­cus and joy. She said Atarah’s jour­ney had been fu­elled by both pas­sion and per­se­ver­ance af­ter she was in­tro­duced to ten­nis at Duke’s Ten­nis Acad­e­my at age six.

“At first, she wasn’t too en­thu­si­as­tic,” she ad­mit­ted. “But once she start­ed win­ning medals, her ef­fort and en­joy­ment of the sport sky­rock­et­ed.”

Brook­er-Bachan said Atarah’s love for foot­ball grew from her ad­mi­ra­tion for Cris­tiano Ronal­do.

“She watch­es Ronal­do play and dreams of be­ing just like him. She’s now a proud mem­ber of Union Hall Unit­ed Foot­ball Club,” she said.

How­ev­er, track and field was a sur­prise.

“One day she came home and said, ‘Mom­my, I made the team!’ We weren’t even aware she had been train­ing for it!” she re­called with a laugh.

Like all ath­letes, Atarah has faced set­backs. Her ini­tial strug­gles in ten­nis tour­na­ments damp­ened her en­thu­si­asm, but her par­ents guid­ed her through.

“We told her to fo­cus on en­joy­ing the sport, not just on win­ning. Now that she has medals, her mind­set has changed,” Brook­er-Bachan said.

Bal­anc­ing school and sports has al­so been a chal­lenge.

“She would love to train more, but with the long com­mute to her clubs, she can on­ly at­tend one ses­sion per week for each sport,” her moth­er ex­plained.

“Aca­d­e­mics come first, but we make space for her pas­sion. If she looks ex­haust­ed, we al­low her to rest. Com­pe­ti­tions be­ing on week­ends al­so helps.”

Stephen Bachan said sports run in the fam­i­ly. Atarah’s broth­er, Ethan, is ex­celling in cy­cling.

“He just loves rid­ing. Even if he falls, he gets back up and keeps go­ing,” Stephen said.

The Bachans are deeply in­vest­ed in sup­port­ing their chil­dren’s ath­let­ic jour­neys.

“We take them to prac­tices, and tour­na­ments, and en­sure they have prop­er coach­ing. But we al­so recog­nise when they need a break. The most im­por­tant thing is that they en­joy what they do.”

Asked how they keep their chil­dren mo­ti­vat­ed, Stephen re­vealed: “Choco­lates and snacks! But hon­est­ly, they love their sports. Atarah is com­pet­i­tive—los­ing both­ers her, but she gets back out there. Ethan just en­joys the ride.”

He said Atarah’s long-term goal is clear. She wants to com­pete in­ter­na­tion­al­ly for Trinidad and To­ba­go. While she has no spe­cif­ic com­pe­ti­tion in mind yet, her par­ents are ea­ger to en­sure she fol­lows the right path.

“Men­tor­ship would be great­ly ap­pre­ci­at­ed,” Stephen said. “We’d love guid­ance on what steps to take now, in five years, and in ten years to pre­pare her for in­ter­na­tion­al suc­cess.”

He said the chil­dren’s in­volve­ment in sports has al­so shaped their per­son­al­i­ties.

“Sports teach them dis­ci­pline, time man­age­ment, and re­silience. There is a time for every­thing. When you’re study­ing, give it your all. When you’re play­ing, give it your all,” he said.

The proud par­ents said the sib­lings al­so in­spire each oth­er.

“They at­tend each oth­er’s events, cheer from the side­lines, and push each oth­er to do bet­ter,” Brook­er-Bachan said.

“When one wins, the oth­er feels mo­ti­vat­ed to win too.”

Their proud­est mo­ments are see­ing their chil­dren ap­pre­ci­ate the op­por­tu­ni­ties they have: “Win­ning is a great feel­ing, but see­ing them work hard, im­prove, and en­joy their sports is what tru­ly mat­ters.”

They agreed that putting God at the cen­tre of their lives is the key to their suc­cess and are both com­mit­ted to work­ing to­geth­er to help Atarah and Ethan be­come the sport­ing stars of to­mor­row.