With COVID-19 putting a stran­gle­hold on sport­ing events world­wide for this year, T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC) pres­i­dent Bri­an Lewis is stay­ing pos­i­tive with the prospect of this coun­try be­ing able to host the Com­mon­wealth Youth Games (CYG) next year.

"I re­main con­fi­dent that the Com­mon­wealth Youth Games will be suc­cess­ful," said Lewis. "Giv­en the neg­a­tive im­pact of Covid-19 on our econ­o­my, Trin­ba­go2021 is im­por­tant!"

A de­fi­ant po­si­tion against a grim out­look pre­sent­ed by the coro­n­avirus which has al­ready knocked off the great­est sport­ing event in the world, the Tokyo Olympic Games, from this year's sport­ing sched­ule. On Tues­day, the In­ter­na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tee (IOC) and the Tokyo Or­gan­is­ing Com­mit­tee made the joint de­ci­sion to post­pone the Tokyo Olympic and Par­a­lympic Games to next year.

Lewis ful­ly sup­port­ed the de­ci­sion cit­ing that the health of the ath­letes and all Olympic stake­hold­ers is the num­ber one pri­or­i­ty of his or­gan­i­sa­tion say­ing: "The TTOC ap­pre­ci­ates the cer­tain­ty this de­ci­sion pro­vides ath­letes and NOCs who can now plan on the ba­sis that the Games will not take place this year but not lat­er than sum­mer

2021.

"We can't down­play the pub­lic health risks with the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic ac­cel­er­at­ing around the world. COVID-19 is cre­at­ing hav­oc around the world with dev­as­tat­ing eco­nom­ic con­se­quences."

A good enough rea­son fi­nan­cial­ly for the head of the TTOC to be so adamant about the mul­ti-sport Youth Games, which was en­trust­ed to T&T last year, com­ing off. Thanks to the ef­forts of Rheeza Grant, Kwanieze John and Chanelle Young, who con­cep­tu­alised, de­vel­oped and en­vi­sioned the suc­cess­ful bid, to up­stage oth­er bid­ders Gilbra­tor.

Lewis said, "It's go­ing to be an im­por­tant event for our econ­o­my, in par­tic­u­lar, the tourism, hos­pi­tal­i­ty, trav­el event plan­ning and en­ter­tain­ment sec­tors with 2000 pro­ject­ed ar­rivals in­to the coun­try."

The CYG, which tar­gets ath­letes be­tween the ages 14-18 years, is card­ed for Au­gust 1-7, is part of a com­pact sport­ing sched­ule which in­clude the Caribbean Games in Guade­loupe, the Ju­nior Pan Am Games, the Track and Field World Cham­pi­onships, Fi­na Aquat­ics World Cham­pi­onships and the Track and Field World In­door Cham­pi­onships.

Show­pieces which elite ath­letes will fea­ture and now with the Olympic Games added, they face an­oth­er dilem­ma which IOC will have to re­solve even­tu­al­ly, like­ly with events be­ing axed.

"The IOC will have to ne­go­ti­ate with those two sports. Ei­ther to resched­ule or in­cor­po­rate in­to the Olympics and prob­a­bly pay fi­nan­cial com­pen­sa­tion," said Lewis, who is

trou­bled by what ef­fect the pan­dem­ic will have on the fight against dop­ing.

"A big con­cern for me is COVID-19 has com­pro­mised the an­ti-dop­ing ef­forts world­wide. Out of com­pe­ti­tion test­ing is an es­sen­tial fac­tor in the fight to pro­tect clean ath­letes. The cred­i­bil­i­ty and in­tegri­ty of the Olympics are com­pro­mised if dop­ers and cheaters can use Covid-19 to avoid out of com­pe­ti­tion test­ing.

"The post­pone­ment gives need­ed time for a high lev­el of out of the com­pe­ti­tion to be con­duct­ed in the build-up to the resched­uled Games. The play­ing field must be as lev­el as pos­si­ble for clean ath­letes.