Yes­ter­day, Mon­day, Au­gust 11, was World Steel­pan Day. It’s a day that has sig­nif­i­cance for T&T. That sig­nif­i­cance is one of the rea­sons I choose to re­flect, in par­tic­u­lar, on “Pan on De Podi­um” and the jour­ney to get­ting the steel­pan ver­sion of the na­tion­al an­them played on the podi­um.

It’s a his­to­ry and a jour­ney that ought to have a spe­cial place in T&T’s sport and cul­tur­al his­to­ry. A fact that can­not be erased sim­ply be­cause many don’t con­sid­er it im­por­tant, sig­nif­i­cant or note­wor­thy.

There are many who don’t share my un­wa­ver­ing be­lief that - in the sports are­na - wher­ev­er or when­ev­er a T&T ath­lete, team, sports­man or sports­woman is re­ceiv­ing a medal or tro­phy, the of­fi­cial record­ed pan ver­sion of the na­tion­al an­them should be played.

It should be non-ne­go­tiable and manda­to­ry, not op­ti­mal. Just as team man­agers walk with na­tion­al flags, they ought to sim­i­lar­ly car­ry the copy of the pan ver­sion of the na­tion­al an­them with them.

In re­flect­ing on this his­tor­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance, I will use ref­er­ences from the “Things That Mat­ter” col­umn of June 11, 2024. No, not be­cause of any cre­ative or in­tel­lec­tu­al lazi­ness, but be­cause that con­tent is rel­e­vant to to­day’s re­flec­tion with facts that should be re­stat­ed as op­posed to sim­ply say­ing again dif­fer­ent­ly to avoid be­ing repet­i­tive.

A Google search of repet­i­tive throws up the mean­ing of repet­i­tive as con­tain­ing or char­ac­terised by rep­e­ti­tion, es­pe­cial­ly when un­nec­es­sary or tire­some. The top­ic of World Steel­pan Day, and Pan on de Podi­um can not by any stretch of the imag­i­na­tion be con­sid­ered un­nec­es­sary or tire­some.

The na­tion­al an­them played on pan when­ev­er a Team TTO ath­lete or team won a gold medal at all Games un­der the T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC)/T&T Com­mon­wealth Games As­so­ci­a­tion (TTC­GA) was a goal set ear­ly in my first term (2013-2017) as TTOC and TTC­GA pres­i­dent.

Pan on de Podi­um’s his­to­ry was made on Ju­ly 5, 2022, when the of­fi­cial record­ed steel­pan ver­sion of the na­tion­al an­them was played dur­ing the Olympic gold medal re-al­lo­ca­tion cer­e­mo­ny held in Lau­sanne, Switzer­land, for the 2008 men’s 4x100 me­tres re­lay team.

Get­ting the In­ter­na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tee (IOC) to ap­prove the use of the pan an­them—Pan on de Podi­um—wasn’t sim­ple.

The op­por­tu­ni­ty to show­case the steel­pan through sport is one that all na­tion­al sports or­gan­i­sa­tions that car­ry the red, white and black and the des­ig­na­tion T&T should be ob­lig­at­ed, even man­dat­ed to pur­sue.

Na­tion­al sports or­gan­i­sa­tions (NSOs) and na­tion­al gov­ern­ing bod­ies (NGB), who haven’t as yet fol­lowed the TTOC and made a for­mal re­quest to their rel­e­vant In­ter­na­tion­al, Con­ti­nen­tal and Re­gion­al Sport Fed­er­a­tions, that

(1) TTO not TRI be used to iden­ti­fy Team T&T, and

(2) that on all oc­ca­sions - the of­fi­cial pan ver­sion of the TTO an­them be played should do so.

The orig­i­nal plan for T&T’s his­toric host­ing of the Com­mon­wealth Youth Games (CYG) in­clud­ed the record­ing of the na­tion­al an­them of all the par­tic­i­pat­ing Com­mon­wealth na­tions and ter­ri­to­ries. Didn’t hap­pen as orig­i­nal­ly planned, as the CYG2023 LOC (lo­cal or­gan­is­ing com­mit­tee) de­cid­ed that it was cost­ing too much mon­ey. The less said about that de­ci­sion, the bet­ter. As it’s wa­ter un­der the bridge now.

The Unit­ed Na­tions web­site www.un.org has this to say: Ac­knowl­edg­ing that the steel­pan pro­motes in­clu­sive so­ci­eties, sus­tain­able com­mu­ni­ties and the cre­ative econ­o­my and can have a pos­i­tive im­pact on men­tal health and well-be­ing, gen­der equal­i­ty and youth em­pow­er­ment.

Here is a ques­tion: which NSO nor NGB make time to ac­knowl­edge World Steel­pan Day? Or is it just an­oth­er day that has lit­tle or no im­por­tance or sig­nif­i­cance?