“The chance of success increases when you put country before self.”
This was the message relayed by Sports Minister Anil Roberts, who reverted to his part-time job as coach when he spoke to members of T&T’s Under-17 men’s water polo team which will depart for Buenos Aires, Argentina next Friday, to contest the Pan American Junior Water Polo Championship.
The Championships, a qualifying event for next year’s FINA World Youth Water Polo Championship, will run from August 23 to September 1, where a top five spot will suffice in the team’s progression to the global competition.
The national junior water polo team, along with parents, executive members of the Amateur Swimming Association of T&T (ASATT) and officials of the Sport Company of T&T (Sportt), were present at the VIP Lounge of the Hasely Crawford Stadium, Wrightson Road, on Tuesday night, where the charges were offered words of wisdom from Roberts, who also serves as coach of Olympic medalist George Bovell III.
Chairman of Sportt, Sebastien Paddington, who represented T&T in freestyle swimming at the Olympic Games in 2000 also spoke to the junior athletes.
Roberts’ advice to the parents was straightforward: “Allow the coach to do his job.”
Saying he was already inspired by their past success and the determination etched in their faces, Roberts advised the athletes to use their country as motivation to succeed, citing recent FINA World Championship medalist Bovell as an inspiration and a patriot.
T&T’s participation at the last Junior Pan American Championship in 2011 resulted in a fourth placed finish, which secured the team a spot at last year’s World Championship, where it placed 18th.
The team’s current head coach Allan Too A Foo said his team is as likely as any other to finish in the top five at the competition. He coached the team to its first ever gold medal at the Central American and Caribbean Swimming Confederation (CCCAN) Championships in San Jose, Costa Rica, where the team triumphed 8-4 over Puerto Rico in the final.
T&T cannot field a girls’ team at the Pan American Games due to the team’s withdrawal before the recent CCCAN qualifying event.