If wasn't for the coro­n­avirus COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, all eyes would have been fix­at­ed on Tokyo, Japan.

The T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC) as the rest of the world, yes­ter­day marked the one-year-to-go to the resched­uled start date of the Olympic Games, with its pres­i­dent Bri­an Lewis, ac­knowl­edg­ing to­day with mixed feel­ings as it would have been the orig­i­nal date of the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny for the Tokyo Olympics.

"It's one of those bit­ter­sweet types of mo­ments. The re­al­i­ty is that we cel­e­brate, the Olympic Move­ment that is, with one year to go," said Lewis. "Were it not for COVID-19, we would be all look­ing for­ward ea­ger­ly and with great ex­pec­ta­tion and an­tic­i­pa­tion for the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny to see Team TTO pa­rade out.

"The un­wa­ver­ing and in­domitable spir­it of Team TTO ath­letes in the face of the chal­lenges and set­backs of the un­prece­dent­ed glob­al pub­lic health cri­sis should be ob­served and em­braced as el­e­ments of mo­ti­va­tion and in­spi­ra­tion to sport lead­ers, ad­min­is­tra­tors and the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty.

"The Olympic move­ment has been chal­lenged by COVID-19 but more­over the cir­cum­stances have pro­pelled ath­letes to dis­play ded­i­ca­tion and de­ter­mi­na­tion, in step­ping up and push­ing for­ward to pur­sue their life­long Olympic dream."

Ac­cord­ing to Lewis, who is al­so the Caribbean As­so­ci­a­tion of Na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tees (CANOC) pres­i­dent, the sym­bol­ic ob­ser­vance is in sup­port of lo­cal ath­letes, who need en­cour­age­ment and guid­ance, now more than ever.

"It is im­per­a­tive that we put our ath­letes' in­ter­est and wel­fare first; we must be there for them. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, we pour our en­cour­age­ment out to all Olympic lead­ers and ad­min­is­tra­tors to serve as in­spi­ra­tion and lights of pos­i­tiv­i­ty to our Olympic ath­letes and those who as­pire to be­come Olympians.

"There is a say­ing, 'Tough times don’t last but tough peo­ple do'. We have to be tough with pos­i­tiv­i­ty and re­silience, in or­der to take full ad­van­tage of the op­por­tu­ni­ties that emerge out of this pe­ri­od of cri­sis.

"Team TTO, #10Golds24, are the mot­tos to em­brace, as these serve as el­e­ments of em­pow­er­ment over COVID-19, as we sur­pass the chal­lenges and ob­sta­cles of the present day, with the de­ter­mi­na­tion that soon, the Olympic Games will be here," en­cour­aged Lewis, who was look­ing for­ward to the de­but of the pan ver­sion of the na­tion­al an­them at the pre­mier sport­ing event.

"It would have been the pan ver­sion of the na­tion­al an­them that would have been heard at the Olympic Games. I would have been very con­fi­dent that the team that would have gone to the Games this year, had a very good chance an ex­cel­lent chance of do­ing ex­treme­ly well, medalling and bring­ing us a step clos­er to the vi­sion of 10 or more gold Olympic medals that is by the year 2024.

"But his­to­ry will now show be­cause of COVID-19 that there is no Olympic Games and that the Olympic Games had been resched­uled for the first time in his­to­ry."