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Training to be an Olympic champion is a full time commitment requiring significant time and resources. In an effort to further support the athletes of Trinidad & Tobago, the Trinidad and Tobago Olympic Committee (TTOC) recently announced the launch of the #10golds24 Athlete Welfare and Preparation Fund.

The vision of #10golds 24 (10 or more Olympic Gold medals by 2024) is to further enable national athletes to realize their Olympic dreams. The fund will provide financial assistance to Olympic, Paralympic and Commonwealth Games athletes to enable them to train, recover and compete at the highest level.

Fund support may include:

Direct financial support

Medal bonus

Health and Accident Insurance (Providing world class medical support to our top athletes is of paramount importance. Injury and illness can threaten an athlete's career if they're not identified and dealt with quickly.) Internships with Corporate T&T to prepare for life after elite sport Life Skills training Anti Doping education and awareness Financial Literacy training Media Training. TTOC President Brian Lewis will launch the fund on January 25th, 2015 by participating in the 2015 Trinidad International Marathon. Lewis  to raise $500,000TT for the Fund through his participation.

Other fund raising activities will be revealed in due course.

The vision of the fund is to serve TTO's athletes . It is intended that the Fund will be independent , transparent, ethical, accountable and non governmental. For our athletes fulfilling their Olympic dreams requires years of dedication, sacrifice and single minded focus. This fund underscores The TTOC's  commitment to supporting our athletes on their long and arduous journey.

BISHOP ANSTEY proved themselves queens of the Digicel Girls Schools Rugby.

They won the title during the 2014 season, and at a recent prize distribution ceremony they claimed the trophy for their success.

Also among the trophies were Fatima College who won the Under-14 title in the Digicel Trinidad and Tobago Schools Rugby Football Union.

The Fatima boys won both the league and knockout titles

International School took the trophy in winning the Under-17 series.

At the prize distribution ceremony, Digicel Branding and events manager Natalie Black O’Connor said, “it really is a pleasure being able to support the skill and talent of these youngsters.

“The talent has truly grown from year to year and I am really proud of the level of skill displayed.”

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Former England and Lions great Jeremy Guscott is now a rugby union pundit for the BBC and a consultant in the field of data and telematics. Ahead of next month’s RBS Six Nations tournament, we sat down with the man Sir Clive Woodward once described as “the Prince of Centres” to discuss the critical role data now plays in the modern game and what the sport and business worlds can learn from one another when it comes to adopting data-led technology.

How much was data and technology a part of rugby union during your playing career? Did you get a sense of a transition while you were playing?

The concept of data has been around for a long time in rugby union. Over the years the data available has become more abundant, specific and refined. There’s been a gradual move towards greater detail and more ability to capture, report and feedback.

Back in 1989 when I made my debut for England, the fitness team consisted of one person and analysis was fairly basic. We were tested on speed, speed endurance, power and strength. Team and individual player analysis was prepared, again by just one person, and came in the form of a single video tape which would be paused and played to highlight key points.

Typically in today’s team management set up at an elite club you will have an entire department dedicated to sports science and performance and to both team and individual analysis.

How much did the game going professional impact on the adoption of data-led analysis?

Rugby has always been big on fitness, but the impact of professionalism in this area was dramatic because it meant you could train full time. When the game went professional, you began to see a big physical difference emerge in the body shapes of professional rugby players compared with those of the amateurs.
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Professionalism typically means more money, which in turn means more resource to measure and prepare both rugby teams and individual players. All sports are engaged in a search for those marginal gains that will improve a player’s and the team’s performance. This search is now led by data.

How important do you feel data and technology is to the modern game?

Technology and data are a massive part of rugby union today. So much so that it’s now literally in the fabric of the sport, with GPS devices sewn into a small pouch between the shoulder blades of players’ shirts at the elite level. These devices measure in minute detail the distances and speeds players are covering during training and playing.

In real-time, they can reveal what a player’s average speed is, when a player’s intensity starts to drop and in some cases even measure their heart rate, all of which enable the coaching staff to monitor who is performing above or below their usual level. These insights are particularly useful in training when a player comes back from injury. Based on the data you can customise specific training for any player because you have their full fitness diagnostics to compare with.

I believe data and technology go stride for stride together. The better the technology, generally, the better the data, and the better the data, the better the chances of maintaining and improving performance.

Where do you sit in terms of the balance between numbers and nous in sport?

When I first started out playing as a senior I wasn’t too interested in statistics. I just wanted to play and I relied heavily on my instincts. I didn’t want to know too much about what the opposition did or didn’t do. For me I had a player to beat or a player to tackle. In my mind there was no tech or data required to achieve that goal.

I remember when Clive Woodward first took over as England head coach he put up some charts and showed us how much fitter New Zealand were than us. The point he was making was ‘how did we expect to beat the best team in the world if we weren’t as fit as them?’. From the very first day with Woodward our fitness conditioning changed

Are there parallels to be drawn in terms of the business world?

There are obvious parallels to be drawn between adopting a data-led approach in sport and taking a similar approach in business. In my day job as a consultant in fleet risk management we utilise telemetry technology (the remote capture and analysis of data) to improve driver behaviour and dynamic routing and scheduling optimisation.

In very basic terms the metrics collected through telemetry are fed back to drivers, helping to improve driving behaviour which in turn enables businesses to make savings in fuel and vehicle maintenance costs because the vehicle is being driven safely and more efficiently. Because driving is improved there will be fewer on the road incidents, resulting in lower insurance claims costs which again save money.

The software used in routing and scheduling makes sure drivers are taking the best routes, therefore optimising their time on the roads. It also provides the ability to set a maximum number of jobs per schedule and a maximum shift length.

Is there a risk, both in business and in sport, of becoming too reliant on data and technology at the expense of human instinct and emotion?

In my role as a BBC rugby pundit I find the statistics we have at our fingertips provide us with incredibly useful insights that quite often defy apparent logic. When critiquing a player or a team it’s particularly powerful because we have facts that enable us be accurate and persuasive in our analysis.

On the other hand, some analytics are not yet as sophisticated or reliable as we would like. For example, one stat I look at is ‘defenders beaten’. It tells me a number, but it doesn’t tell me if it was a side-step or off which foot the tackle was missed. I have to combine that data with watching to get the full picture. It’s the same with a tackle stat. It’s just a number, so it can’t tell me how important the tackle was. I have to look at a re-run of the match to see how important the tackle was.

For me, the best analytics help back up my instinct that I have about a player having watched them live. Statistics can often surprise you, sometimes mislead you but always provide a richer understanding of the game.

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APPROXIMATELY $14,000 in cash, as well as two digital cameras, were reportedly stolen from the Trinidad and Tobago Olympic House, Abercromby Street, Port-of- Spain over the weekend.

President of the Trinidad and Tobago Olympic Committee (TTOC) Brian Lewis, on the social media network Twitter yesterday morning, posted, “to (the) criminals who broke into Olympic House this weekend, no weapon formed against us shall prosper. We will not be distracted.”

Lewis declined comment on the matter yesterday, as he referred all questions to Dave Williams, legal adviser to the TTOC and a trustee in its executive committee.

During a telephone interview, Williams confirmed that the incident took place.

“The president received a call (on Sunday) at about (9 am),” said Williams. “One of the staff members, in preparing for a workshop for table-tennis, came into the building (and) saw evidence that someone would have been inside.”

According to the lawyer, “there would have been about $14,000 in cash, that we would have secured in a draw, that was stolen, together with two cameras. Documents were actually tampered with. There were evidence that certain important documents would have been perused. Time would have been spent going through those documents.”

However, Williams revealed, “interestingly, a number of sneakers that we would have received from Adidas were not stolen. Laptops and computers, those things were intact.”

Williams disclosed that officers from the Central Police Station, St Vincent Street, Port-of-Spain visited the Olympic House on Sunday where fingerprints were taken. The TTOC lawyer pointed out that staff members were allowed on the compound yesterday. “Everyone is here, everyone is working as normal,” he said. But Williams revealed, “our telephone lines were actually tampered with, as well as the computer lines. So we are unable to have access to our computer system. We are somewhat constrained as a result of the burglary.”

WPC Cooper of the Central Police Station is currently conducting the investigation.

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The Trinidad and Tobago Olympic Committee(TTOC) will  work with the business community to provide internship, mentorship and work opportunities for elite athletes as part of its 10 or more Olympic gold medals by 2024 #10golds24 athlete welfare and preparation programme.

TTOC President Brian Lewis said Preparing Trinidad and Tobago's Olympic  athletes for life after they retire from elite level sport is one of the priorities of #10golds24.

Many of our Olympians would have obtained scholarships and  degrees from Universities in the USA and we need to stop the brain drain where due to a lack of opportunity they have to seek employment in the USA and other foreign countries.

As part of its #10golds24 athlete welfare and preparation programme the national Olympic committee  will be proactive in engaging the local business community and private sector in discussions to urge them to adopt athletes who are part of the #10golds24 programme.

Editors Note:

The vision of #10golds 24(  10 or more Olympic Gold medals by 2024)  is to enable Trinidad and Tobago  athletes to realize their Olympic  dreams.

The aim of #10golds24 athlete welfare and preparation programme and Fund is to provide financial and holistic assistance to  our nation’s Olympic, Paralympic and Commonwealth Games athletes to enable them to train, recover and compete.

Bovell to hone his skills ahead of Rio 2016

Olympic Committee president gears up to...

High-profile All Blacks must decide within the next four months whether to pursue a gold medal at next year's Olympic Games.

New Zealand Rugby plans to unveil its first squad, which will feature an amalgamation of sevens specialists, Super Rugby stars and All Blacks who have signalled interest, in late May.

A wider squad must also be submitted to the New Zealand Olympic Committee by August 5 - one year out from the games in Rio de Janeiro. Up to 26 players will then be confirmed in the squad announced after the Rugby World Cup in October. That squad will be whittled down to 12 players for the Olympics.

While speculation that Warriors playmaker Shaun Johnson would switch codes has faded, Gordon Tietjens' wish-list is expected to include brothers Julian and Ardie Savea, Liam Messam, Sonny Bill Williams, Charles Piutau, Ben Smith, Hosea Gear and Victor Vito. Of that group, only Williams has no previous sevens experience.

NZR general manager rugby Neil Sorensen and player relationship manager Ben Castle, the former Chiefs prop, will canvas several of those players in the coming months.

"Ben and I are going around in the next couple of months to talk to players Titch may be interested in about how it might work in 2016 in terms of whether they can play any Super Rugby and how many sevens tournaments they'd have to play," Sorensen said. "It's going to be personalised to a large extent.

"The Super Rugby teams need to know sooner than later so they can talk to other players. Knocking it off in May this year gives everyone certainty.

"You're looking at a mix of specialist gurus, the experts who have played sevens for a few years, and a smattering of other players like Sonny Bill. I certainly don't see it being eight All Blacks and four other guys. It won't work like that."

Tietjens, All Blacks management, Super Rugby coaches and the NZR board held discussions recently about the difficult juggling act they face in 2016.

With $2.4 million pledged towards the men's sevens team over the next two years and $2m for the women during the same period, double Olympic gold is high on the agenda.
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But with Richie McCaw, Dan Carter, Ma'a Nonu, Ben Franks, Jeremy Thrush, Tony Woodcock, Conrad Smith, Keven Mealamu and Charlie Faumuina all expected to leave the New Zealand scene, along with other mid-tier talent, after the Rugby World Cup, the All Blacks will confront a challenging rebuilding phase. Coach Steve Hansen will have a lot on his plate ahead of Wales' three-match tour in June next year and the high-profile tour by the British and Irish Lions in 2017.

Striking a balance in priorities creates clear dilemmas.

Players such as Piutau must essentially choose between cementing their spot in the post-World Cup All Blacks outfit or attending the Olympics.

Details are still being worked through but it is understood those that opt for the sevens route will miss six to eight weeks of Super Rugby, depending on their level of sevens experience, conditioning and natural abilities. They are also not likely to be available for the All Blacks until the end-of-the-year tour to the northern hemisphere.

Chiefs coach Dave Rennie is, however, confident Williams will turn out for the franchise next year.

"There's no doubt going to an Olympic Games is pretty special," Rennie said. "If he commits to sevens he'll still play some Super Rugby. We just won't have full access to him.

"With Sonny he couldn't just play sevens and sit out for three weeks. We've certainly been talking to Titch around that. It's going to be the same for all the franchises. If you've got some guys involved then you'll get some access to them."

NZR is also keen to ensure that those who chase a gold medal are not left out of pocket.

"If they are currently earning $10 and they get picked to go to Rio then they'll earn the same," Sorensen said. "It's just a matter of how we supplement that for their Super Rugby franchise."

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The Olympic spirit has come to this: Two authoritarian countries are vying to host the 2022 Winter Games, competing to endure a huge financial strain for the benefit of burnishing their public image. The withdrawal of Oslo in October left Beijing, China’s capital, and Almaty, the largest city in Kazakhstan, as the contenders. They formally submitted their bids to the International Olympic Committee this month.

That helps explain why the president of the International Olympic Committee, the German lawyer Thomas Bach, pushed through landmark human rights reforms at a big Olympic summit meeting in Monaco last month.

For the first time, host countries must sign a contract that requires protections for human rights, labor and the environment. These “international agreements and protocols” are meant to protect against abuses such as Russia’s anti-gay law, passed ahead of last year’s Winter Games in Sochi, and the labor and human rights abuses before and during the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing. These reforms are about to get a rigorous test in the global spotlight — whether the 2022 Games are in China, which welcomed journalists to Beijing in 2008 with a censored Internet, or Kazakhstan, which locks up critics and closes down newspapers.

Over the past decade, Human Rights Watch has documented how major sporting events are also accompanied by human rights violations when games are awarded to serial human rights abusers. Repressive countries promised to respect media and other rights to secure the events, then reneged and relied on international sporting bodies to stay silent.


As these countries prepare for events, forced evictions without fair compensation free up space for the massive new infrastructure construction that Olympics require. Migrant workers are cheated and labor under long hours and sometimes deadly working conditions. Construction leads to environmental and other complaints. Activists who object are silenced or jailed. Beijing locked up critics of the Olympics. In Russia, an environmentalist drew a three-year prison sentence, and members of the feminist band Pussy Riot were beaten and detained, for their protests of the Sochi Games. Given the abuses, is there any hope for change?

If there is the political will to implement them, the contract reforms could improve conditions in countries that host big sporting events. Autocrats are increasingly turning to international sporting events to boost their global standing, so the regulations adopted by their governing bodies might be the only way to make human rights advances in some of the most abusive places.

At Sochi last year, for example, the I.O.C. pressured the Russian government to take action against the theft of wages from workers who helped build Olympic venues and infrastructure. Some 500 companies were investigated, and inspectors found that thousands of workers had been cheated out of more than $8 million in wages. The general director of a top construction company was arrested on suspicion of withholding wages. This action resulted from a specific reform from the 2009 Olympic Congress: a promise that the I.O.C. would intervene in the event of “serious abuses,” including abuses of migrant workers.

In Iran, hard-liners and reformists alike cheer the country’s volleyball successes. A law student, Ghoncheh Ghavami, was jailed in Iran’s notorious Evin prison last year after she protested a ban on women entering a stadium to watch an International Federation of Volleyball World League match. In November, the federation (known as FIVB, the acronym in French) called on the Iranian government to release Ms. Ghavami, and affirmed its commitment to “inclusivity and the right of women to participate in sport on an equal basis.” The federation warned that Iran’s policy could limit its ability to host international tournaments in the future. Ms. Ghavami was released on bail shortly thereafter, but not before a revolutionary court convicted her of “propaganda against the state” and sentenced her to one year in prison. She is appealing.

In 2012, Saudi Arabia allowed two women, at the last moment, to compete at the London Summer Games. But it still forbids sports for all girls in state schools and has no women’s sports federations. The Saudis should win a gold medal in brazenness for sending a 199-member men-only team to last fall’s Asian Games, claiming, “Technically, we weren’t ready to introduce any ladies.”

Human rights and sports crises are not limited to the Olympics. Russia, despite its record of worker abuse, was awarded the 2018 World Cup. This summer, authoritarian Azerbaijan will roll out the welcome mat for the first European Games in Baku, despite escalating repression, including the December arrest of a top investigative journalist.

As Qatar builds an estimated $200 billion of infrastructure for the 2022 World Cup, hundreds of South Asian migrant workers have died working on construction projects. FIFA, the governing body of world soccer, is ripe for institutional reform. In May, it will hold a once-in-a-generation presidential election, in which the current president, Sepp Blatter of Switzerland, will seek a fifth term against stiff competition, including Prince Ali bin al-Hussein of Jordan, who has championed reforms to advance women’s participation. Those candidates should back human-rights-based reforms to the FIFA Charter and set out their position on the human rights, discrimination, corruption and labor crises that have dogged the body.

The Olympic reforms passed in December mean that if future host countries fail in their duty to uphold rights, the I.O.C. is now obliged to enforce the terms of the hosting agreement — including the ultimate sanction of withdrawing the Olympics. And for those who break rules like nondiscrimination, the punishment should be a ban on playing and hosting, as the I.O.C. imposed on apartheid South Africa from 1964 to 1992 and Taliban-run Afghanistan from 1999 to 2002.

Mr. Bach has started the ball rolling, but with abuses mounting around global sporting events, it’s time for other sporting federations like FIFA to begin reforms. Fans, corporate sponsors and the general public are increasingly turned off by human rights violations. The I.O.C. reforms aren’t a panacea, but they represent an important step forward.

Minky Worden, director of global initiatives at Human Rights Watch, is the editor of “China’s Great Leap: The Beijing Games and Olympian Human Rights.”

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