Since the first case of COVID-19 was de­tect­ed in Trinidad and To­ba­go in March 2020, it has been a dif­fi­cult pe­ri­od for this coun­try's sports­men and women. Twen­ty twen­ty-one was an even tougher and more chal­leng­ing year than the months in 2020 when the world re­lent­less­ly tried to come to terms with the virus and un­der­stand what it was all about.

This year, T&T took its largest-ever con­tin­gent of ath­letes to Tokyo to com­pete in an Olympics that was, in it­self, his­toric hav­ing been post­poned from 2020 and be­fore the team board­ed the plane, two ath­letes and an of­fi­cial test­ed pos­i­tive for COVID-19 which must have af­fect­ed the en­tire T&T squad. His­to­ry would show that T&T came away from the Olympics with­out a medal and there were many rea­sons or per­haps ex­cus­es for this put for­ward by the of­fi­cials; one be­ing that it was a young team of ath­letes and a few of the debu­tantes had good show­ings in their re­spec­tive events. Two of them, in par­tic­u­lar, are long jumper, Tyra Git­tens, and shot put­ter, Por­tious War­ren, and much is ex­pect­ed of them go­ing for­ward.

So, let us agree that it was a young team and that come 2024, T&T can ex­pect bet­ter from its ath­letes but I am hope­ful and al­so con­cerned that the Olympics are not be­ing used as part of the de­vel­op­ment process for this coun­try's ath­letes. These games have the best ath­letes on the plan­et com­pet­ing and it is like send­ing lambs to the slaugh­ter if that is the idea. There are many oth­er games in the re­gion and ex­tra-re­gion­al that can be used to as­sess the young ath­letes and to know if they are ready to com­pete at the high­est lev­el.

I felt the T&T team was not prop­er­ly pre­pared and again, through no fault of their own, the pan­dem­ic took its full toll on the sport lo­cal­ly and ath­letes couldn't train when and how they want­ed and to get some con­sis­tent train­ing in prepa­ra­tion for Tokyo, many ath­letes had to go abroad but in some cas­es, that still was not enough. Let us hope that al­though Paris 2024 seems a long way off (but re­al­ly it's not), in the case of an ath­lete, prepa­ra­tion will be much more in­tense than it was for Tokyo.

As the pan­dem­ic con­tin­ued to af­fect all sports in this coun­try, the rest of the world slow­ly start­ed to open up to var­i­ous sports. The foot­ball leagues in Eu­rope had al­ready opened up but were be­ing played be­hind closed doors with no spec­ta­tors be­ing al­lowed. This has changed dras­ti­cal­ly for the 2021 - 2022 sea­son when games are be­ing played in front of packed sta­di­ums. Play­ers have been ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed but un­for­tu­nate­ly, with the lat­est vari­ant of the virus - Omi­cron - the Eng­lish Pre­mier League has been hard hit with many games in De­cem­ber be­ing post­poned. But cred­it must be giv­en to the Eng­lish FA as they have not can­celled or post­poned the en­tire league pro­gramme, but in­stead have is­sued strict guide­lines to clubs with dai­ly test­ing of the play­ers and club of­fi­cials. In oth­er words, what they are say­ing is that sport has to go on. We can­not hide be­hind this virus and lock­down every sin­gle soli­tary sport as it has al­ready be­come trau­mat­ic for youths who are plead­ing to get out there and com­pete. The au­thor­i­ties in this coun­try must take a page out of this book. The virus is clear­ly here to stay and adapt­abil­i­ty is key in mov­ing for­ward.

Cred­it must al­so go to ath­letes like Nicholas Paul and Dy­lan Carter and many oth­ers who are abroad test­ing their skills with high-qual­i­ty op­po­si­tion as that is the on­ly way they will im­prove; stay­ing here will sim­ply not cut it. On this point, they are able to af­ford to go abroad and sup­port their de­vel­op­ment. Many ath­letes, un­for­tu­nate­ly, do not have this lux­u­ry and have to re­main here and the on­ly out­come is to have their growth stunt­ed. That be­ing said, both Paul and Carter have been su­perb this year and while both still have a lot of work to do, Paul seems to be on the break­through of some­thing re­al­ly pos­i­tive in cy­cling. I must ad­mit I am not sure how much more work Carter needs to do to be reach­ing the pin­na­cle of his sport but I wish them both good luck as they con­tin­ue to make the peo­ple of T&T proud.

It is time to open up sports in this coun­try in 2022. All the old talk has to stop. It is on­ly fair to our ath­letes. We can­not just al­low train­ing for our na­tion­al ath­letes. What is hap­pen­ing to the many young­sters who are on the verge of mak­ing their na­tion­al teams in their re­spec­tive sports? They would have now spent the bet­ter part of near­ly 2 years not com­pet­ing in leagues and more im­por­tant­ly, not test­ing them­selves against their peers and how much progress they have made.

The two ma­jor sports in this coun­try, crick­et and foot­ball, have been shut down. The Pro League and Su­per League both seem a dis­tant mem­o­ry. On the oth­er hand, in Ja­maica, not on­ly are they play­ing pro­fes­sion­al league foot­ball, but they have al­so start­ed their sec­ondary school's league. No won­der they are com­pet­ing in the fi­nal stages of World Cup qual­i­fi­ca­tion and their school­boy league seems streaks ahead of their T&T coun­ter­parts. Sure­ly, the pow­ers that be can find out what were the guide­lines the Ja­maicans used and im­ple­ment sim­i­lar guide­lines here and get our foot­ball leagues start­ed again. What a joy it would be to see the sec­ondary schools league back up and run­ning in 2022.

Na­tion­al league crick­et and re­gion­al crick­et have been sus­pend­ed, yet we have play­ers from this coun­try go­ing out there to rep­re­sent the West In­dies. Why can't we re­sume lo­cal crick­et with the clubs be­ing giv­en strict guide­lines en­sur­ing all the play­ers are ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed? Why can't the lo­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tives on the board of Crick­et West In­dies strong­ly rec­om­mend the re­sump­tion of the four-day re­gion­al tour­na­ment? There are many young play­ers I have seen in this coun­try who are on the verge of step­ping up to the next lev­el but with no crick­et, they will find al­ter­nate av­enues and may very well be lost to the sport. It will sad­ly serve as the equiv­a­lent of a brain drain in sport lo­cal­ly.

Be­fore clos­ing, I have just read where no spec­ta­tors are be­ing al­lowed in­to the Un­der-19 Crick­et World Cup. What a trav­es­ty. Sure­ly ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed spec­ta­tors can be al­lowed in to show their sup­port and per­haps at 50% ca­pac­i­ty? Both the Queen's Park Oval and the Bri­an Lara Acad­e­my have cor­po­rate box­es away from the play­ers with sep­a­rate en­trances; sure­ly, they can be ac­com­mo­dat­ed to view the games. The Oval has been des­ig­nat­ed a safe zone and I am sure Lara and the Diego Mar­tin Com­plex can do the same. Let us hope the ICC can be per­suad­ed to al­low spec­ta­tors in as we can­not con­tin­ue to hide and hope the virus goes away. Clos­ing our eyes and ex­pect­ing this virus to go away is be­ing com­plete­ly naive. What should be the fo­cus is en­sur­ing test­ing is free and eas­i­ly ac­ces­si­ble to all but at the mo­ment, it is sim­ply not and it is con­tin­u­ing to stunt so many facets of so­ci­ety.

Fi­nal­ly, let me wish every­one a hap­py and bright New Year and please, let us get the sport in this coun­try up and run­ning in 2022.

Ed­i­tor's note

The views ex­pressed in this ar­ti­cle are sole­ly those of the au­thor and do not re­flect the views of any or­gan­i­sa­tion of which he is a stake­hold­er.