Trinidad and Tobago Sportsman of the Year and Olympic swimmer Dylan Carter was one of three athletes to receive funding from the Ministry of Sport and Community Development yesterday, via the Elite Athlete Programme. The other two athletes were sprinter Jereem Richards and boxer Nigel Paul.
A release from the ministry said Minister of Sport and Community Development Shamfa Cudjoe presented cheques, which totalled TT$450,000,to representatives for the trio during a ceremony at the ministry’s head office at Nicholas Tower, Port of Spain. However, it did not say the precise figure given to any of the sportsmen.
The Elite Athlete Programme provides financial support to Trinidad and Tobago’s top international athletes, so as to ‘support their development, training and participation in high performance sport’.
In this case, the funding was meant to ‘aid in their preparation for the Tokyo Games’.
Cudjoe said the ministry would provide over TT$2 million to the Trinidad and Tobago Olympic Committee (TTOC) in the coming weeks to support its Olympic preparations while she noted that the government will meet its obligations under the Reward and Incentive Programme—should any athlete medal at the Tokyo games.
“Despite difficult economic times due to the global impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Government of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago continues to invest in sport and support our athletes,” said Cudjoe, who encouraged other athletes to seek assistance where necessary through the ministry’s ‘implementation agency’, SporTT.
Yesterday’s handover was the second such distribution for 2021, as the ministry split TT$794,936 between 13 athletes and ‘sporting organisations’ in February.
The athletes then were: Andwuelle Wright, Machel Cedenio, Kyle Greaux, Sparkle McKnight, and Jerod Elcock. And the organisations that benefited from grant funding ‘in support of their programmes and activities geared at fostering sport development, facilitating athletic performance, and engendering community spirit’ were: Alejandro John, Rhodney Allen, Memphis Sports Club, Forbes Football Visionary Concepts, Hills United, Bethel United, Mt St George Police Youth Club, and WI Sport.