When Hasely Crawford won the 100m gold medal at the 1976 Olympics, little did he know or perhaps care that then Montreal Mayor Jean Drapeau was the person responsible for bringing the Games to that city. As any CXC French student should know, DRAPEAU is the French word for FLAG. So on the night of Saturday, July 24, 1976, when our national flag was raised in triumph at ’The Big O’, as the Montreal Olympic Stadium was fondly called, little did Mr Crawford know that many years later a T&T National Stadium which the PNM would build and which the UNC would later re-name in his honour, would be the venue of so much controversy, when 33 years ago we were all bursting with national pride when the Red, White and Black was ceremoniously raised for the world to see and not come like a thief in the night as it did on this occasion.
Coincidentally, the cry then, as it is now, was ’Money is
no problem’.
