National junior beach volleyball players, Malika Davidson and Chelsi Ward, anticipate a challenging year ahead as they take a step up by attempting to qualify for the 2015 Pan American Games which serves off in Toronto, Canada, from July 10-26.

Having gotten their feet wet on the international level at the 2014 Youth Olympics in China, Davidson and Ward are intent on making their mark.

On November 27, 2013, the athletes sealed their Youth Olympic spot by topping the Caribbean Volleyball Association Zonal NORCECA qualifiers at Maracas Bay. They have now shifted focus to compete at the senior level in an effort to qualify for the coming Pan Am. However, they will officially remain on the junior circuit as they also prepare for several Invitational and Under-20 tournaments within the coming months.

Speaking to head coach of the duo, Sean Morrison, recently, he described the preceding year as a success and a major stepping stone for himself and the two beach volleyballers.

“I would say that we had a good year on the circuit,” said Morrison. “Our preparations before (Youth Olympics) was about 80 percent with getting the girls together, training, heading to the gyms, court time, Maracas (Bay) training. We could have spent a bit more time in camps and preparation but it was still good enough. Moving forward for us, we are trying to prepare for the local Pan American Games qualifier. We will have to play some local qualifiers against some of the best senior teams in Trinidad and Tobago if we are to qualify. We expect it to be tough.”

Morrison also lauded the bravery shown by his athletic prospects and commended them for silencing several critics who thought his team would be unable to qualify for the Youth Olympics. As coach of the Davidson/ Ward combination for the past three years, Morrison expressed pleasure with the type of experience his athletes returned home with from the China experience.

Meanwhile, both Davidson and Ward were pleased with 2014 and revealed that they will be utilising their newfound knowledge.

“I found that it was a really productive year,” said the 17-year-old Ward.

“e worked really hard and trained for the entire summer to prepare for our Olympic performance. I thought we went out there and performed well. We advanced out of our group and that was very impressive for me. Progressing out of the groups alongside the greatest volleyball nations was indeed a personal and team achievement for us,” she added.

The Bishop Anstey High School pupil continued, “Watching the more experienced teams play, we learnt a lot from them. We saw some things that we need to do a bit more work and improve on with respect to our fitness levels and the type of game we play.”

Additionally, University of the Southern Caribbean (USC) Behavioural Sciences student, Davidson, shared similar sentiments on her just concluded year and welcomed the many challenges presented in the coming season.

“It was a success because we accomplished our goal of making it to the Olympics and coming out of the group was the highlight for us,” added Davidson. Playing (on the Youth Olympic stage) was a really good experience for me. I remember viewing some games of the other top nations and it has helped me a lot. Seeing how they handle some of the situations during games has helped me a lot even though we all play differently.

We also played against teams that were preparing for the Youth Olympics for about four years prior, while we only had one (year to prepare). And showing that we could have kept up (competitively) with the more experienced teams was unbelievable, I’m proud of us,” concluded Davidson.

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The 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona came off at the beginning of a new era. The collapse of communism in Eastern Europe led to the appearance of several fledgling teams, such as Croatia, while the former Soviet Union staged its final Olympic appearance - as the Unified Team. Again, Trinidad and Tobago were represented by a small team of eight athletes. Gene Samuel returned with his reputation restored by two big performances in 1991: a gold medal in the time trial at the Pan American Games in Havana and a third place finish at the World Cycling Championships in Stuttgart. There was also Maxie Cheeseman, a man hoping to improve upon his seventh placing in the match sprint, four years earlier. This duo was joined by a six member track team: Ian Morris, Patrick Delice, Robert Guy, Alvin Daniel, Neil DeSilva and Ato Boldon. Morris had followed up his appearance in the 400m final in 1988, with a silver medal at the Pan Am Games and another final making performance at the '91 World Championships in Tokyo. Daniel was once a top 100 and 200m runner at the junior level who had developed into Morris' major rival over the 400m. The two actually had to be separated from a physical altercation, following Morris' victory at the Hampton Games in Port of Spain in May.
Delice was a team mate of Morris' from Seoul, while Guy also had a fair amount of experience, De Silva was making inroads at both the 200 and 400m and 18 year old Boldon had developed into a meteoric sensation: He recorded an impressive 200m victory at the National Championships and then copped the 100-200 double at the CAC Junior Championships in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.

Once again, through illness and injury, Samuel was unable to transfer his previous form onto the cycle track in Barcelona and could only place eighth in the time trial, in a time of 1:05.49. The event was won by Spain's Jose Moreno. An impulsive decision to enter into the points race event did not bring much consolation: 19th place. Meanwhile, Cheeseman had to be content with 11th spot in the match sprint. On the athletics track at the Montjuic Olympic Stadium saw an early set of eliminations. The precocious Boldon was unable to negotiate the first rounds of either the 100 or 200 metres. De Silva did reach the semi-finals of the latter, before being disqualified for running outside of his lane - after originally finishing in seventh place. Delice and Daniel went out in the first and second rounds of the 400m, but Morris made it all the way to the final. He came within inches of an Olympic medal, being edged into fourth place by Kenya's Samson Kitur. There was another final appearance, Trinidad and Tobago's sixth, in the 4x400m relay. In the end, the team of DeSilva, Delice, Daniel and Morris claimed seventh position.

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It was Mahatma Gandhi who famously said, "Be the change that you wish to see in the world". Whether forceful like a tidal wave or incrementally like a glacier, change is always hard. The hardest part is accepting that you need to change, harder still when you are a group of more than one hundred independent strong-minded members from around the world all needing to be of one mind.   .

But together the International Olympic Committee (IOC) members came together with one mind - they understood that the world has changed and that we have to continue to change with it. They agreed to a man and woman to support the forty recommendations of Olympic Agenda 2020 that will change our organisation and Olympic sport and make it fit for the future.

But why now? For me this is an easy answer. The Olympic Movement has rarely been stronger. We have had two exceptional Games in 2012 and 2014. We enjoy financial stability and redistribute more than 90 per cent of our revenues to sport and to the athletes - that is over $3 million (£2 million/€2.5 million) every single day going to support worldwide sport. Being strong and in good health is important to any change programme. The world is changing faster than ever so we need to be in the driving seat rather than sitting in the back being driven by others.

The world is more fragile, fragmented and individualised than ever. Our messages of tolerance, solidarity, friendship and peace are more important today than ever before. But if we want to strengthen the relevance of our Olympic Message people have to hear that message, they have to understand what we are endeavoring to do and they have to believe in our integrity to deliver.

We have listened to people's concerns we have listened to the questions people have about the access and affordability of the Olympic Games, about our governance, our finances, our values and our social and community responsibility. In short, we hear that people want to understand more about our sustainability, our credibility and the plans we have to engage young people. They want to understand how the Olympic Movement and its values can play a role in making the world a better place.

We have spent the past year addressing these concerns and tackling the next question, which is what to change in order to make the progress we seek. The IOC is a values-based organisation so it was not enough to change just for the sake of change. For us change has to be more than a cosmetic effort or just a procedure, change has to have a goal. This goal is progress. Progress for us means strengthening sport in society through our values.

The decisions we collectively made mean we now have embraced a new philosophy in the bidding procedure which will enable cities each to target their own different development goals. Bidding will not be a 'one size fits all' solution. We need to understand how the Olympic Games can fit into the social, economic and sporting interests of a city or region. We will respect and encourage diversity in bidding in the same way we have also enshrined diversity and the prohibition of discrimination in the fundamental principles of Olympism.

We have also strengthened our good governance, transparency and ethics. Our financial statements will be prepared and audited by the benchmark International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), and even to a higher standard than is strictly legally necessary.

We will provide an annual activity and financial report, including the allowance policy for IOC Members, which will give evidence for the fact that the IOC Members are genuine unpaid volunteers. We already have an independent Ethics Commission but in common with good governance practice of many large corporations we will also create the position of a compliance officer.

When it comes to young people we cannot forget that they are our future. As a sports organisation we cannot be satisfied only with increasing numbers of young people watching the Olympic Games. Only children playing sport can be future athletes. Only children playing sport can enjoy the educational and health values of sport. We want to inspire these children by giving them better access to sport. We want to engage with them wherever they are. We want sport on more school-curricula world-wide.

We have adopted plans to allow the sports programme to more easily allow the inclusion of new sports that appeal to the young. I am also delighted with the recommendation to create an Olympic Channel. We must give our athletes and sports the world-wide media exposure they deserve between Olympic Games, connecting the athletes with their fans, the fans with sport 365 days a year.

The recommendations the Olympic Movement has passed are all about progress, progress in safeguarding the Olympic values and progress in strengthening sport in society. They are the individual pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, but put together these individual pieces come together to provide a picture of progress.

And now our work begins. We have come together and agreed our roadmap for the future. Changes that I believe will shape the Olympic Movement to be fit to speak to a new generation of fans and athletes.

In the same way as our founder, Pierre de Coubertin set out on a journey over a century ago we carry the hopes and dreams of the world's athletes to turn these recommendations into progress and to drive unity in diversity through our actions. We are shaping a brighter future for the athletes and the Olympic Movement. Just as Pierre de Coubertin did before us, we will all "be that change".

Together we will deliver an Olympic future for this magnificent, truly global Olympic Movement.

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Michel Platini will be the sole candidate in the 2015 UEFA Presidential election campaign, the governing body for European football has confirmed.

The Wednesday (December 24) deadline for submissions to run for President of UEFA has passsed with incumbent Platini the only candidate to put themself forward for the role as head of the organisation.

"Only one candidate has been announced: current UEFA President Michel Platini, who will be seeking a third four-year term of office from 2015 to 2019," a UEFA statement confirmed.

Platini was first elected for the post of UEFA President in January of 2007 and was re-elected for a second term in March of 2011.

The 59-year-old Frenchman, who made 72 international appearances and led his country to victory at the 1984 European Championships, and considered to be one of the greatest footballers following a career at Saint-Étienne and Juventus.

Platini had been widely expected to stand for the President of world governing body FIFA but announced earlier this year that he would not stand against Sepp Blatter, who is seeking a fifth term.  

UEFA also announced the deadline for the positions up for election at the the European governing body's Congress in Vienna is January 24.

That is exactly two months before the Congress is due to take place in the Austrian capital on March 24.

"These remaining positions concern seven members of the UEFA Executive Committee," UEFA added.

"Also, the Vienna Congress will see the election of a FIFA vice-president, a FIFA vice-president representing the four British Associations, and a FIFA Executive Committee member."

The other eight Executive Committee members will be elected in 2016 after the European Championships in France.

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Commonwealth 800 metres silver medallist succumbs to cancer

Olympian Benedict “The Rolls Royce” Cayenne has passed away.

Cayenne, who represented Trinidad and Tobago with distinction at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City, Mexico, died on Saturday in the United States, losing his battle with cancer. The University of Maryland graduate was 70.

At the ‘68 Games, Cayenne advanced all the way to the men’s 800 metres final. He returned a time of one minute, 48.2 seconds to finish second in his first round heat. The Barrackpore-born half-miler clocked 1:46.8 for fourth spot in the opening semifinal. And in the championship race, he finished eighth in 1:54.3.

Cayenne’s close friend and Olympic teammate, Edwin Roberts remembers Cayenne’s battle with the high altitude of Mexico City.

“Benedict was always a great runner,” Roberts tells the Express. “He was very surprising when he went to the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. In the first round, when he finished, he fell down, and the guy came down and gave him oxygen. The second round, they came out and gave him oxygen. The third round, which was the final, they ran out there, but Benedict stood up. He didn’t have to get oxygen.”

In 1968, Cayenne became the first T&T athlete to reach an Olympic Games 800m final. No one has yet matched the feat.

Also in Mexico City, George Simon, Euric Bobb, Cayenne and Roberts combined for sixth spot in the men’s 4x400m relay.

Cayenne’s greatest achievement came at the 1970 Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh, Scotland. He became T&T’s first Commonwealth Games 800m medallist, earning silver in 1:47.42. Again, this feat is still unmatched.

At the same Games, Melville Wong Shing, Cayenne, Kent Bernard and Roberts teamed up for 4x400m silver.

“The best race Benedict ran,” says Roberts, “is when he was in Edinburgh for the Commonwealth Games. He did very well there. He ran a very smart race – in the 800 and the 4x4.”

Cayenne also earned precious metal at the 1966 Central American and Caribbean (CAC) Games in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He bagged bronze in the men’s 800m, and was part of the T&T team that secured 4x400m silver.

“Sad to say,” Roberts laments, “we will miss a great person. He got along very, very well with the athletes, and has lived a good life. He travelled with me all over Europe – Germany, France, Italy, Sweden... he used to go all over and run. Benedict’s career was a great career.”

In his younger days, Cayenne served T&T as a member of the police service.

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