Outstanding athletes rewarded with TT$5 million

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad (CMC) — Olympic javelin champion Keshorn Walcott was among a group of athletes who received TT$5 million from the Trinidad Government for their outstanding performances at the recently concluded Central American and Caribbean (CAC) Games.

Triple gold medal­list cy­clist Nicholas Paul and shot put­ter Cleopa­tra Borel, were also among those who were rewarded on Wednesday at a function host­ed by the Min­is­ter of Sport and Youth Af­fairs, Sham­fa Cud­joe at the Na­tion­al Rac­quet Cen­tre in Tacarigua.

The event was also used to officially launch the Na­tion­al Pol­i­cy on Sport 2017 – 2027 and was attended by T&T’s first Olympic gold medal­list Hase­ly Craw­ford, cricket legend Bri­an Lara and tal­ent­ed foot­baller Rus­sell Lat­apy.

In commending the athletes for their efforts, Cudjoe said the new National Policy on Sport ensured that national athletes would be rewarded for their performances at regional and international meets.

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“I am sur­round­ed by he­roes. It is my priv­i­lege and plea­sure to be here to launch the Na­tion­al Pol­i­cy on Sports 2017-2027 as we recog­nise sport­ing ex­cel­lence with our na­tion­al ath­letes who would have medalled at the re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al Games,” Cudjoe said.

“The 2002 pol­i­cy fo­cused on the de­vel­op­ment of sport un­der two main ar­eas, to­tal par­tic­i­pa­tion in sport and high-per­for­mance sport. Though at the time the 2002 pol­i­cy was con­sid­ered to be holis­tic in its ap­proach to sports de­vel­op­ment, it was nev­er ful­ly im­ple­ment­ed.

“The na­tion­al pol­i­cy on sports 2017-2027 would have cap­i­talised on any de­fi­cien­cies iden­ti­fied with the pre­vi­ous pol­i­cy and rec­ti­fied. The new pol­i­cy adopts a com­pre­hen­sive and col­lab­o­ra­tive frame­work for ac­tion,” she added.

Cud­joe promised that her min­istry would en­sure that all in­di­vid­u­als and in­sti­tu­tions re­spon­si­ble for ser­vic­ing the needs of the sport were equipped with the nec­es­sary skills and com­pe­ten­cies.

Additionally, she said Cab­i­net had ap­proved the re­ward of na­tion­al teams which cre­ate his­to­ry by qual­i­fy­ing for their re­spec­tive World Cups for the first time, like the women’s se­nior vol­ley­ball team, which will make their de­but at the World Women’s Vol­ley­ball Cham­pi­onships in Japan lat­er this year.