Passing the baton to Paris 2024

RAIN has been pouring these days, but over in Tokyo it’s been nothing but a dry spell for this country’s Olympians.

As the curtain comes down on TT’s campaign to make an appearance on the medal table, all eyes will be on our men’s 4 x 400m relay team as they seek today to reverse weeks of bad luck and heartache. So far, team TT has been unable to make a real impact, sustaining shock exits, agonisingly close defeats and coming down with covid19.

But whether or not we advance and eventually bring home a medal, our Olympians have already done us proud. They showed up at the games in circumstances that were far from ideal. From this perspective, they have turned in meritable performances.

More than this, they have sometimes united the country and inspired collective hope – no mean feat in this era of deep political division, animosity and strife.

It’s to be hoped, too, we have realised they need more than moral support to make their mark: becoming a world-class athlete is a full-time occupation, and this country needs to pay that issue serious attention, not only while Olympic Games or assorted leagues and championships are actually going on.

Tyra Gittens, 23, was not a household name before Tokyo. But she mesmerised the country with her long jumps and her charismatic dance moves between track events – all executed under pressure at the very highest level of competition. She placed in the top ten in the world in an event she had not even specialised in. She had hoped to compete in the heptathlon, a combined track and field event that includes the long jump as a component. And there is more to come from her.

“Even though I’m grateful for my Olympic experience in long jump, my heart hurts watching the heptathlon knowing I should have been there,” Ms Gittens tweeted on Wednesday. “Next time I won’t leave it to ‘world rankings.’ I’ll guarantee my spot.”

Observers and people in the cycling world knew that world record holder Nicholas Paul would be a force to reckon with in the men’s cycling sprint.

But the way Mr Paul blazed through to the quarterfinals was a breath of fresh air in a week in which tried and tested names, and former medallists, all bowed out in other events.

Still, it was not to be for Mr Paul, who only just lost out on a medal chance after a line violation in his race against Russian Denis Dmitriev forced a third sprint in which Mr Paul simply ran out of gas. For Mr Dmitriev, it was sweet revenge. He’d been defeated in one of his quarterfinal races of the 2012 London Olympics by none other than TT cyclist Njisane Phillip.

But even amid disappointment there is hope. Luckily for our younger Olympians, Paris 2024 is not that far away.