T&T swim­mer Dy­lan Carter is among a cur­rent list of 117 ath­letes un­veiled by the World­wide Pay­ment Tech­nol­o­gy Part­ner of the Olympic and Par­a­lympic Games, join­ing Team Visa for Paris 2024, yes­ter­day.

The 2024 class is the largest group of Olympic and Par­a­lympic hope­fuls in the pro­gramme's his­to­ry and the most di­verse, rep­re­sent­ing more than 60 mar­kets and 40 sports in­clud­ing new ad­di­tion Break­ing.

Team Visa ath­letes from around the world at­tend­ed the re­cent Team Visa Sum­mit in Paris for a two-day, cre­ator-led con­tent mas­ter class fo­cused on brand im­mer­sion and best prac­tices for how to tell their own sto­ries with­in the broad­er cre­ator econ­o­my.

“To­day, ath­letes have the pow­er to tell their own sto­ries, trans­form fans in­to com­mu­ni­ty, and gen­er­ate com­merce through their own cre­ations,” Wal de­mar Cordero, Visa’s Mar­ket­ing Lead for the Caribbean and Cen­tral Amer­i­ca. “We are gath­er­ing the Team Visa ath­letes in Paris to help them fur­ther de­vel­op their skills as cre­ators and to find new and ef­fec­tive ways to com­mu­ni­cate, en­gage and in­spire peo­ple around the world.”

In ad­di­tion to Carter, (Swim­ming, Trinidad and To­ba­go ) the cur­rent list of Latin Amer­i­ca and Caribbean ath­letes in­clude: Mar­cos Mon­e­ta (Rug­by, Ar­genti­na), Juli­eta Janku­nas (Field Hock­ey, Ar­genti­na), Gus­ta­vo Fer­nan­dez (Para Ten­nis, Ar­genti­na), De­bin­ha (Foot­ball, Brazil), Rais­sa Rocha (Para Track & Field, Brazil), Al­ber­to Abarza (Para swim­ming, Chile), Maria José Ro­jas (Skate­board­ing, Chile), Daniela Mon­toya (Foot­ball, Colom­bia), Brisa Hen­nessy (Surf, Cos­ta Ri­ca), José Pablo Gil (Para Ten­nis, Cos­ta Ri­ca), Kiara Ro­driguez (Para Track & Field, Ecuador), Meliqué Gar­cía (Track & Field, Hon­duras), Rasheed Broad­bell (Ath­let­ics, Ja­maica), Ale­jan­dra Va­len­cia (Archery, Mex­i­co), Rodol­fo Ches­siani (Para Track & Field, Mex­i­co), Hillary Herón (Gym­nas­tics, Pana­ma), Chris­t­ian Pacheco (Track & Field, Pe­ru), and Dy­lan Carter (Swim­ming, Trinidad & To­ba­go).

Team Visa Paris 2024 al­so in­cludes dec­o­rat­ed ath­letes like Iga Swiatek (Ten­nis, Poland), Sky Brown (Skate­board­ing, Great Britain), Tere­sa Perales (Para swim­ming, Spain), Noah Lyles (Ath­let­ics, US), Ok­sana Mas­ters (Para-cy­cling, US), and Kanoa Igarashi (Surf­ing, Japan).

“I am ho­n­oured to be part of Team Visa ahead of Paris 2024. I’ve al­ways recog­nised the Visa brand as a top sports sup­port­er and now I can see it first­hand as they sup­port me and hun­dreds of oth­er ath­letes across the globe in our Olympic dreams,” said Carter.

Team Visa Sum­mit: A Mas­ter Class in Cre­ator Sto­ry­telling

Visa trans­formed a fu­ture site of Paris 2024 in­to a cre­ator play­ground by tap­ping in­to cul­tur­al touch­points across art, tech­nol­o­gy, mu­sic, sport, fash­ion, and food. Guid­ed by cul­tur­al in­flu­encers and best-in-class so­cial me­dia cre­ators, ath­letes learned to ex­press them­selves through these pas­sion points while al­so learn­ing hands-on so­cial plat­form tips for el­e­vat­ing their per­son­al brand and sto­ry­telling prowess.

Cul­tur­al in­flu­encers and cre­ators were on hand as ath­letes par­tic­i­pat­ed in con­tent chal­lenges and col­lab­o­ra­tive ses­sions that in­clud­ed learn­ing a new sport, cre­at­ing an ex­clu­sive mu­sic track, try­ing their hand at street art, and cap­tur­ing trend­ing so­cial me­dia con­tent around Paris.Team Visa al­so met with youth from Sport Dans La Ville, a lead­ing as­so­ci­a­tion for pro­fes­sion­al in­te­gra­tion through sport in France, to ac­cen­tu­ate Eti­enne Bardel­li’s in­spir­ing mur­al in Stade Elis­a­beth to cel­e­brate the com­mu­ni­ty and in­cen­tivize youth sports par­tic­i­pa­tion.

Team Visa for Paris 2024 By the Num­bers:

Since 2000, the Team Visa ath­lete pro­gram has cham­pi­oned more than 600 Olympic and Par­a­lympic ath­letes se­lect­ed based on their ath­let­ic achieve­ments, com­mu­ni­ty in­volve­ment, and align­ment with Visa’s core val­ues of equal­i­ty, ac­cess, and in­clu­sion.

Paris 2024 Team Visa high­lights:

- 117 Olympic and Par­a­lympic ath­letes from 60+ mar­kets, in­clud­ing sev­en new mar­kets (Aus­tria, Ar­me­nia, Cyprus, Mal­ta, Slo­va­kia, Uzbek­istan, Hon­duras)

- Ages 15-48 with high­est per­cent­age of women ath­letes in pro­gram his­to­ry

- 40 sports, in­clud­ing new Paris 2024 sport: Break­ing

- 175 medals col­lec­tive­ly, with 15 ath­letes com­pet­ing in their first Olympic or Par­a­lympic Games

-More than 45 mil­lion com­bined so­cial fol­low­ers across Team Visa ath­letes