Five Trinidad and Tobago’s Olympians took part in a motivational session organised by the Trinidad and Tobago Olympic Committee (TTOC) on Wednesday to aid in their performance at the London Olympics currently underway.

The TTOC has now ensured that this is done 48 hours prior to any event being contested by a local athlete.

Former Olympic long jump gold medallist (1964) Lynn Davies of Great Britain and national 400m Olympian (1964) Edwin Skinner sat down with Kelly-Ann Baptiste, Michell Lee Ahye, Semoy Hackett, Jehue Gordon and Ayanna Alexander to impart some words of competitive wisdom. Speaking with the manager of the national track and field team in England yesterday, Dexter Voisin explained some of the topics that were touched by the highly experienced duo.

“We all sat down and had a detailed but very beneficial chat with the athletes competing tomorrow (today).

These sessions are being conducted so that athletes can voice their personal concerns and remove any extra anxiety in them, before they go out and compete. It was also designed to assist them in their final preparations,” Voisin stated.

The national Olympic team manager revealed that these five athletes were mainly told to veer their thoughts and focus away, from medalling. He stated that this was one of the major factors that indirectly hampered the progress of an athlete throughout the qualifying stages of any event.

“Davies and Skinner hit the nail on the head for these athletes. While everyone wants to win a medal, there is a very important qualification journey that one must overcome first, before the thought of a medal should enter the athletes’ mind. What these Olympians told our athletes was to take the preliminaries and qualifiers one event at a time. Simple,” he said.

Voisin continued, “Don’t worry about gold now. Focus on the event that’s at hand and move on from there.

Athletes must know that they should try to perform in relation to their training routines and not over exert themselves in the early stages.”

By Jonathan Ramnanansingh

Source: www.newsday.co.tt