Olympic Swim­mer Dy­lan Carter says now that the Paris 2024 Olympic Games are over it’s time to take stock.

Trinidad and To­ba­go fin­ished a sec­ond con­sec­u­tive games with­out a medal. De­spite this Carter not­ed that he and his peers were grate­ful for the “over­whelm­ing sup­port” they re­ceived even while still in Paris.

“It wasn’t the Olympics we dreamed of, I think that’s the ele­phant in the room,” Carter be­gan dur­ing a short ad­dress on be­half of the ath­letes at the air­port’s VIP Lounge, on Wednes­day, “but I’m very con­fi­dent that for all of my team-mates on this team and the oth­er ath­letes in Trinidad and To­ba­go our best days are ahead of us.”

The three-time Olympian, who gave a frank, re­flec­tive in­ter­view af­ter his par­tic­i­pa­tion at the Aquat­ics Cen­tre said it was good to be home and af­ter a short rest will be­gin to search for an­swers to the hard ques­tions.

“I’m go­ing to sit down with my coach and my team and do a good post-mortem and look back on the past six months, bru­tal­ly, hon­est­ly, and as­sess how we pre­pared and how we move for­ward,” Carter said, “The best way to go for­ward is to look back and iden­ti­fy where we maybe made mis­takes and things we can im­prove on but first I think a lit­tle break is in or­der for the mind and the body.”

Carter and fel­low Olympians sprint­ers Michelle-Lee Ahye, Ak­i­lah Lewis, Devin Au­gus­tine, and Eli­jah Joseph, quar­ter-mil­er Ren­ny Quow, and cy­clist Nicholas Paul ar­rived at Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port from the French cap­i­tal on Wednes­day evening around 4 pm.

Chef de Mis­sion Lovie San­tana-Duke and oth­er of­fi­cials in­clud­ing Brent El­der, Keisha Fras­er, Melanie Gul­ston, Charles Joseph, Dex­ter Voisin, Maria Thomas, and Verne Al­leyne ac­com­pa­nied the ath­letes.

San­tana-Duke said, de­spite the re­sults, she and her staff felt, from their first-hand view, that there was no doubt about the con­tin­gent’s ded­i­ca­tion to the cause.

“I’m proud of each and every one of the ath­letes that par­tic­i­pat­ed and com­pet­ed at the games with pride and joy,” San­tana-Duke as­sert­ed, “I wish them all the best on their jour­ney go­ing for­ward we have a new qua­dren­ni­al which is about to start and lots of games, and be­ing a young team we ex­pect to see them com­pet­ing and build­ing, grow­ing and de­vel­op­ing for LA 2028.”

Team TTO in­clud­ed sev­er­al debu­tants in­clud­ing swim­mer Zuri Fer­gu­son and track ath­letes Lewis, Au­gus­tine, Joseph, twins Sanaa and Sole Fred­er­ick, Sha­keem Mck­ay, and Jaden Marchan whose first games will serve as a plat­form for the fu­ture of their ca­reers.

Im­me­di­ate past-pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC) echoed her sen­ti­ments on be­half of Pres­i­dent Di­ane Hen­der­son, “Our heart­felt thanks and ap­pre­ci­a­tion for your years of sac­ri­fice, for your blood sweat and tears and for do­ing in the last two weeks what many peo­ple in Trinidad and To­ba­go have not and can­not do, which is to rep­re­sent the red, white and black with glo­ry, with ho­n­our, with pride, and with pa­tri­o­tism.”