All is well with T&T ath­letes at the Pan Amer­i­can Games here in San­ti­a­go, Chile and they are pumped and ready to par­tic­i­pate in to­day’s open­ing cer­e­mo­ny at Chile’s Na­tion­al Sta­di­um in the cap­i­tal city, San­ti­a­go from 7.30 pm (T&T time).

So said Chef de Mis­sion Sta­cy San­tana ahead of the start of the 19th edi­tion of the Games.

“The sports that have al­ready ar­rived in San­ti­a­go are gym­nas­tics, swim­ming, bas­ket­ball, box­ing, weightlift­ing, bad­minton, ta­ble ten­nis, and cy­cling and those are the ath­letes that will take part in the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny,” said a busy San­tana, yes­ter­day, fol­low­ing an ear­ly morn­ing meet­ing of each of 39 na­tions’ Chefs.

Rep­re­sent­ing T&T at the pa­rade will be cy­clists Nicholas Paul, the reign­ing Pan Am men’s sprint cham­pi­on, Kwe­si Browne, Zion Puli­do, Ak­il Camp­bell and Alexi Cos­ta-Ramirez, 3x3 bas­ket­ballers Ah­keel Boyd, Ah­keem Boyd, Mori­ba De Fre­itas, and Chike Au­gus­tine; bad­minton play­ers Ath­letes: Cheque­da De Boulet and Marc Reese Mar­cano; box­ers Tian­na Guy, An­gel George, Al-Jaleel Johku, Aaron Prince and Nigel Paul; gym­nasts An­nalise New­man-Achee, and Jameel Ali; swim­mers Nikoli Black­man, Zarek Wil­son and Cherelle Thomp­son, ta­ble ten­nis play­er Rheann Chung and weightlifter Karin Singh.

Among them are the two who will lead with the na­tion­al flag, how­ev­er, San­tana did not dis­close their names on­ly say­ing: “Yes Team TTO like times be­fore has two flag­bear­ers for these Games, one male and one fe­male.”

The iden­ti­ty of the flag­bear­ers will be known ear­ly to­day.

This is San­tana’s sec­ond time serv­ing as Chef de Mis­sion and she has tak­en much pride in fill­ing the role as head of the 100-mem­ber con­tin­gent.

“My first time was in 2022, at the Caribbean Games in Guade­loupe. I was al­so deputy Chef at the CAC (Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean Games) in 2018 where I feel I gained the bulk of ex­pe­ri­ence re­al­ly as we had over 300 team mem­bers,” said San­tana, adding that part of her du­ties is to learn all the rules of each sport in depth in case any is­sues arise so she can lend fur­ther sup­port to the man­agers and the ath­letes.

“I’ve learned that at these Games they’re not about me, they’re not about be­ing Chef but it’s about the needs of the en­tire del­e­ga­tion es­pe­cial­ly our ath­letes but most im­por­tant­ly about the coun­try.”

Tonight, T&T will be among the 38 coun­tries and ter­ri­to­ries in the Amer­i­c­as on pa­rade at the largest mul­ti-sport event, which runs un­til No­vem­ber 5.