on the occassion of the pride that our group of sports men and women has instilled in us and the adoration of the mighty red, white and black, I genuflect in reverence and hail their achievements as nothing less that the best gift a country can receive on its 50th anniversary of Independence.

These people have lifted the hearts of a nation that is not easily moved and given our country the kind of exposure that no politician, no per capita murder rate and no corruption index can ever blemish. 

It is beyond boundless faith in destiny that a young Keshorn Walcott, a son, a villager from humble beginings in Toco which was just in the news for destroying turtle eggs, now holds the royal reins as javelin champion of the entire sporting world. When we say side by side we stand, we envision our relay knights running their guts to the ground, giving the Jamaicans and Americans "presha'' as we say.  And when the sprint monarch Bolt looks in across the track setting a new world record, he is not looking to see where his compatriots are, he is looking to see where are the T&T men.

To our ladies, I say, "down but not out''. We simply have got to keep trying as I see the ladies have the legs to beat a Felix or a Fraser-Pryce or even a Jeter, the next time they see them.  

Tobago seems to have something in the water that gives the higly esteemed Lalonde Gordon what he needs to run the most professional race, measured by stamina, focus and speed.

We must not forget the efforts of Andrew Lewis on the high seas or Roger Daniel on the shooting range or Cleopatra Borel-Brown, who missed out by mere centimetres. In fact, we now have four years to the next horizon, to take another look at sport in T&T. 

Like Lara and Yorke and Crawford, when next the name of T&T is spoken anywhere in the world, the next sentence will be , "those people were the success story of the 2012 Olympics, if ever there was one''.  What more can we ask for?

Lystra Marajh

Glencoe