"Pan on de Podi­um." The sig­nif­i­cance of the his­toric play­ing of the steel­pan ver­sion of the na­tion­al an­them at an Olympic Games medal cer­e­mo­ny is a trea­sured mo­ment for pan lovers. It was the first time in Olympic his­to­ry.

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 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 4 x100 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 goal back then was to get the steel­pan ver­sion of the na­tion­al an­them played at Olympic medal cer­e­monies. An im­por­tant glob­al recog­ni­tion for our na­tion­al in­stru­ment. That, the IOC even­tu­al­ly agreed is to the cred­it of cur­rent IOC pres­i­dent Thomas Bach.

Note­wor­thy, the pan ver­sion of the na­tion­al an­them was ap­proved to be played at medal cer­e­monies at the Com­mon­wealth Games, Pan Am (Pan Amer­i­can) and CAC (Cen­tral Amer­i­ca and Caribbean) Games in 2018.

In Jan­u­ary 2020, the land­mark IOC ap­proval was re­ceived. Their strict pro­to­cols were met in­clud­ing of­fi­cial sanc­tion from the gov­ern­ment of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Then Min­is­ter of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, Cul­ture and The Arts Dr Nyan Gads­by Dol­ly pro­vid­ed: (1) The re­quired cor­re­spon­dence that sat­is­fied In­tel­lec­tu­al Prop­er­ty con­cerns; (2) ap­proved the Na­tion­al Steel Sym­pho­ny Or­ches­tra (NSSO) un­der the di­rec­tion of Akua Lei­th to do the of­fi­cial record­ed ver­sion. Thanks to the Akua Lei­th-led NSSO En­sem­ble the IOC was sat­is­fied with all as­pects of the world stan­dard qual­i­ty of the record­ed ver­sion.

Why the steel pan – bred, born and grown right here ac­cord­ing to his­to­ri­ans cir­ca 1939 – is still not em­braced by some has been de­bat­ed for decades.

Nonethe­less, 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.

In 1992, for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning in an In­de­pen­dence Day mes­sage said the steel­pan would be des­ig­nat­ed the na­tion­al in­stru­ment.

On Fri­day (June 7, 2024), the Na­tion­al Mu­si­cal In­stru­ment Bill (2024) was laid in the Par­lia­ment in the name of Min­is­ter of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts Ran­dall Mitchell. It has been a long time com­ing.

Na­tion­al Sports Or­gan­i­sa­tions and gov­ern­ing bod­ies, 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 Trinidad and To­ba­go, and (2) that on all oc­ca­sions - the of­fi­cial pan ver­sion of the TTO an­them be played should do so.

The orig­i­nal plan for Trinidad and To­ba­go's his­toric host­ing of the Com­mon­wealth Youth Games in­clud­ed the record­ing of the na­tion­al an­them of all the par­tic­i­pat­ing Com­mon­wealth na­tions and ter­ri­to­ries. Pre­de­ter­mined in their at­ti­tudes by their place in the so­cial or­der. The CYG2023 LOC de­cid­ed that it was cost­ing too much mon­ey. Thought­less­ly iron­ic.

An op­por­tu­ni­ty lost nev­er to be re­gained.

In 2023, 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, the UN Gen­er­al As­sem­bly pro­claimed Au­gust 11 as World Steel­pan Day.

What day was the CYG2023 clos­ing cer­e­mo­ny? Au­gust 11, 2023.