West In­dies crick­et has been de­scribed by many in the re­gion as the on­ly uni­fy­ing force in sports and maybe even for some in pol­i­tics, al­though Cari­com may right­ful­ly or wrong­ful­ly dis­agree.

How­ev­er, on Wednes­day (Ju­ly 31), 30 Na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tees from our re­gion will aim to show that as a peo­ple and re­gion, we can stand to­geth­er, unite and be a strong and pow­er­ful voice in the sport­ing world with CANOC (Caribbean As­so­ci­a­tion of Na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tees) Day be­ing recog­nised in France.

On Ju­ly 31, 2003, in the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, Caribbean na­tions gath­ered for the Pan Amer­i­can Games and this is where it all start­ed and has be­come af­ter sev­er­al dis­cus­sions, CANOC.

Kei­th Joseph, CANOC pres­i­dent and his or­gan­i­sa­tion will of­fi­cial­ly cel­e­brate 21 years in ex­is­tence, to­day.

"We will be hav­ing a small cel­e­bra­tion on the Riv­er Seine in a boat with all of the of­fi­cials and oth­ers to sig­ni­fy how much we have grown over the years and con­tin­ue to.

“This is fur­ther em­pha­sis of what we as a group can do once we all work to­geth­er,” he told Guardian Me­dia Sports.

Over the years, Joseph, who is gen­er­al sec­re­tary of the St Vin­cent and Grenadines Olympic Com­mit­tee, ex­plained it has not been easy to gain recog­ni­tion but through the ef­forts of many.

"Things have changed and we have grown stronger. There are many per­sons to thank for that from the founder Steve Stoute fore­most for his hard work.

Joseph al­so praised sev­er­al oth­ers who have con­tributed in one way or the oth­er from Bri­an Lewis, who was a for­mer pres­i­dent of CANOC, to Ytan­nia Wig­gins, who is mak­ing a name for her­self.

"She is lead­ing the way in 'Women in Sports' de­vel­op­ment. We know how im­por­tant that will all be as we strive to reach every­one and al­low all to know that there are op­por­tu­ni­ties for all,” said Joseph. "Our idea con­tin­ues to be to use Sports to unite the re­gion and show that ma­tu­ri­ty.”

One of the goals of Joseph, who is in the sec­ond year of his four-year term as pres­i­dent of CANOC is to con­tin­ue to dri­ve the re­spectabil­i­ty of the re­gion.

He said: "It took us a while to get the recog­ni­tion we were seek­ing but we have got that now, we now get fund­ing through the IOC (In­ter­na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tee) and we can as­sist in the re­gion by a num­ber of ed­u­ca­tion­al sem­i­nars and we­bi­na­rs. We have signed an MOU (Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing) with the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies for projects and re­search, so we are mak­ing progress."

Among some of the ar­eas that CANOC con­tin­ues to im­pact, are em­pha­sis on safe­guard by Na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tees, Gen­der Equal­i­ty, Sport for de­vel­op­ment, Sport and En­vi­ron­ment con­tri­bu­tion to sus­tain­abil­i­ty.

Joseph, the sec­ond vice pres­i­dent of Pan Amer­i­can Sports, the or­gan­i­sa­tion that was high­ly praised for or­gan­is­ing the pre-camp for the T&T team at Mull House in France.

"We have been able to col­lab­o­rate more and work to­geth­er and uni­ty is strength, which al­lows us more ex­pres­sion and more im­pact as we have a num­ber of per­sons on var­i­ous com­mit­tees in­ter­na­tion­al­ly in­clud­ing An­nette Knott from T&T who is on of these com­mit­tees with per­sons, from Cu­ba, Ja­maica and Bar­ba­dos,” Joseph told Guardian Me­dia Sports.

Talk­ing of uni­ty, Joseph will, in Oc­to­ber at the Pan Amer­i­can Sports Elec­tion, seek the post of pres­i­dent.

He said, "I ex­pect CANOC mem­bers to be ful­ly sup­port­ive as it gives us an op­por­tu­ni­ty to show that we are wor­thy and can strive for lead­er­ship at a high­er lev­el with­in the glob­al sports move­ment.

"This is an op­por­tu­ni­ty for us to show just how uni­fied we can be as a re­gion in terms of where we can take our­selves giv­en the plat­form that our ath­letes have laid for us by their achieve­ments at mul­ti-sport games whether it be CAC (Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean), Pan Amer­i­can Games or the Olympics."

The func­tion will start at 2 pm (TT time) on the Riv­er Seine and the cel­e­bra­tion will in­clude a boat ride and sev­er­al spe­cial and sur­prise events as well as ad­dress­es from pres­i­dent Joseph and oth­er spe­cial­ly in­vit­ed guests in Paris.