LAUSANNE—Former world boxing champion, T&T boxer Ria Ramnarine was one of eight coaches to graduate with honours distinction when the International Coaching Enrichment Certification Programme honoured its class of 2015 in a ceremony held at the International Olympic Committee headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, yesterday.

In addition to Ramnarine, the other coaches were Marcello Varriale from Brazil; Maria Victora Echavarria from Colombia; Stewart Velasco from El Salvador; Nigatu Worku Angasu from Ethiopia; Shiba Maggon from India; Eyyad Maghayreh from Jordan; and Yang Yu from the USA. The seventh edition of the ICECP—an intensive coaching education programme developed by the United States Olympic Committee, the University of Delaware and the IOC—included 33 coaches representing five continents, 33 countries and 14 sports.

The ICECP is conducted in partnership with Olympic Solidarity, an IOC program that provides financial assistance to National Olympic Committees around the world. Thus far, the ICECP has reached 198 participants from 23 sports and 87 countries over the seven-year history of the programme.

“Congratulations to the newest class of ICECP graduates,” said USOC CEO Scott Blackmun. “These coaches represent the future of the Olympic Movement, and their commitment to developing their personal skillset and advancing the global sports community is admirable.” Held at the University of Delaware; the US Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado; apprenticeship sites around the US; and the IOC headquarters, the ICECP began at the University of Delaware on September 20 and was conducted in four modules.

In the final module, participants presented the projects they completed over the course of the programme—which focused on improving coaching infrastructure in their home countries — to the ICECP academic board, and took part in a formal graduation ceremony featuring a keynote address by IOC Sports Director Kit McConnell and Simon Toulson, secretary general of the International Canoe Federation.

“It was a true honour to work with the USOC to put on a world-class program,me” said Dr Matthew Robinson, director of the ICECP and professor of sport management at the University of Delaware.

“The participants’ efforts were inspirational and I know all of them will make important contributions to their sport and the Olympic Movement for years to come. We look forward to year eight next year and passing the 200 participant mark. I am humbled to work with so many passionate people who contribute to the success of the programme.”

“Participation in the ICECP was an amazing experience,” said Marcello Varriale, a 2015 graduate from Brazil. “The content I learned at the University of Delaware and from the USOC staff was invaluable. The difference of the ICECP from other programmes is the sharing and learning from different countries and sports, and being able toa pply these ideas to my sport of rowing. In implementing my project, I discovered the importance of having a structured program. With that, I was able to develop coaching education in a structured manner to benefit the coaches in my sport and country.”

The 2014-15 programme included coaches from American Samoa, Austria, Antigua and Barbuda, Botswana, Brazil, Cambodia, Cape Verde, Cayman Islands, People’s Republic of China, Colombia, Cook Islands, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Fiji, Grenada, India, Jordan, Latvia, The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Malaysia, Maldives, Mozambique, Nigeria, Puerto Rico, Qatar, Serbia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Syria, T&T, USA and Uganda.

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Former Trinidad and Tobago coast guard commander Reginald Williams embarked upon an historic voyage yesterday as he attempts to complete the transatlantic journey from T&T to the United Kingdom.  The vessel The Legacy, will set sail for Antigua and then journey across the Atlantic Ocean to the Portuguese Azores, after which it will finish the journey, sailing to the Isle of Wight, England, where Williams and his crew will contest the Aberdeen Asset Management Cowes Week Regatta. Williams has been sailing for over 40 years and is continuing a family tradition that has spanned four generations. “This will be the last major campaign for The Legacy on our watch,” Williams told the Express yesterday. “We thought that there was no better way to send off The Legacy than to embark on this voyage.” The yacht will be sold to new owners after the voyage and the race. The sailor and his crew hope to create history. “This is the first time a team of West Indians will race on an indigenous boat in 180 years,” claimed Williams. It will also be the first time since 1960 that a voyage to the UK has been made by  Trinidadians in a local boat. There are of course some challenges as according to Williams, the crew was not designed originally for short manning. “Everyone needs to have a critical specialisation on board,” he said. “We are short-handed; the boat is not going be manoeuvred so everyone will be doing double duty.”  An enthused Williams hoped that with the journey he and his crew could inspire younger sailing fans. “The Atlantic run was something they were planning for a long time. We hope this race will inspire others in the sport,” said Williams. “We will do our best to make T&T proud of us.”

TRINIDAD and Tobago are the top-ranked of the 12 countries involved in the opening leg of CAZOVA (Caribbean Zonal Volleyball Association) women’s beach qualifying for the Olympic Games. The tournament will be contested from today until Sunday in Jamaica and the countries which finish in the first six positions will advance to the second of four rounds of NORCECA (North, Central America and the Caribbean) qualifying for the Games of the XXXI Olympiad, which will be staged in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in August next year. T&T, Curacao, United States Virgin Islands and Barbados, the four highest ranked countries, respectively, in this competition will receive byes into the second round and will only have to beat one country to move forward. The other countries involved are Bahamas, Cayman Islands, Guadeloupe, Haiti, Martinique, Suriname and host nation Jamaica. Each country will be represented by two pairs and Apphia Glasgow, La Teisha Joseph, Shenelle Gordon and Elki Philip will be flying the red, white and black flag. Glasgow and Joseph had the ideal preparation for this competition last weekend when they reached the quarter-finals when this year’s NORCECA (North, Central America and the Caribbean) Beach Tour served off in the Cayman Islands.  Glasgow, Gordon and Joseph are young and relatively inexperienced, but Philip is one of this country’s most accomplished players on the sand.

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Kuwait's Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah has been elected onto the FIFA Executive Committee after all his opponents competing for a two-year term withdrew during today's Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Congress in Manama.

Sheikh Ahmad, one of the most important powerbrokers in sport who is seen as a close ally of International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach, will add the new responsibility to his existing roles as IOC member and President of both the Association of National Olympic Committees and the Olympic Council of Asia.

He will become the fourth IOC member on the Executive Committee, along with FIFA head Sepp Blatter, Cameroon's Confederation of African Football President Issa Hayatou and Burundi’s Lydia Nsekera, and is likely to play a key role liaising between the two bodies.

During today's meeting in the Bahraini capital - which is being attended by Sepp Blatter and all of his rivals for the FIFA Presidency - AFC head Shaikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa has also been re-elected by acclamation for a fresh four-year term in office after no one stood against him.

Shaikh Salman will also now become a FIFA vice-president, replacing Presidential contender Prince Ali bin Al-Hussein of Jordan, as his term has come to an end.

Football Association of Malaysia President Prince Abdullah Al-Haj Ibni Sultan Hj Ahmad Shah received the highest number of votes to take on of the two other four-year FIFA Executive Committee positions, while the other was claimed by Japan Football Association vice-president, Kohzo Tashima.

This means Dato' Worawi Makudi of Thailand, a Committee member since 1997, has been voted off, while South Korea Football Association chief Chung Mong-gyu and Oman's Sayyid Khalid Hamed Hamood Al Busaidi were also unsuccessful.

Qatar Football Association vice-president Saoud Al Mohannadi had pulled out two days before the election, calling on West Asia to settle on one candidate.

Meanwhile, in a speech to open the meeting, Blatter praised Shaikh Salman, a staunch supporter in his Presidential re-election campaign, for steadying the AFC ship after his Qatari predecessor Mohammad Bin Hammam was banned from football in 2013.

He has shown “a remarkable sense of organisation and diplomacy to bring back the boat of the Asian Football Confederation, that at a certain time has been in waters that are not so very clear and not so very clean,” it was claimed.

The Swiss also praised the growth of the sport in Asia, quoting Chinese philosopher Confucius to justify how the FIFA development programme has helped engineer improvement.

"Confucius said, if you want to help your friend or your brother, don't give him a fish but teach him how to get fish," he outlined.

"This is the policy of our development programme, there is money available [but] I don't want to speak about money today."

As well as Prince Ali, both Luis Figo of Portugal and Royal Dutch Football Association head Michael van Praag were also present, although neither spoke formally during the Congress.

The trio will challenge heavy favourite Blatter next month during the FIFA Congress in Zurich on May 28 and 29.

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NASSAU   With the first race yet to be run at the IAAF World Relays here in Nassau, Bahamas, Trinidad and Tobago athletes are already on centre stage. In the main photo on the cover of the official programme, T&T sprint star Keston Bledman looks to the heavens as he is about to settle into the starting blocks ahead of his men’s 4x100 metres lead-off leg at the inaugural IAAF World Relays, in Nassau, last year. T&T teenager Machel Cedenio is also featured on the cover, running alongside Bahamian Chris “Fireman” Brown during the 2014 men’s 4x400m event. Cedenio, the reigning 400m world junior champion, was also spotted on a large advertising poster in downtown Nassau. While surprising, the prominence being given to Team T&T in 2015 was earned at the 2014 edition of the global meet. The men’s 4x100m quartet earned silver, while bronze was bagged in the women’s 4x100m and men’s 4x400m events, T&T finishing sixth overall with 19 points. The second IAAF World Relays will be staged today and tomorrow at the Thomas A. Robinson National Stadium, in Nassau, and quadruple Olympic medallist Ato Boldon is expecting an even better performance from T&T. “I’ll be very shocked,” Boldon told the Express, “if we leave here with a medal haul that is not as good as that. Across the board we’re better--4x4s and certainly 4x1s.” The men’s 4x400m combination of Lalonde Gordon, Renny Quow, Cedenio and Jarrin Solomon will be the first T&T team in action. At 7.24 this evening, they will run in heat three against the likes of Great Britain, Belgium, Australia and Dominican Republic. The top two countries in each heat will advance to tomorrow’s final. The same quartet finished third in last year’s championship race in a national record time of two minutes, 58.34 seconds. At 7.49pm., Bledman, Marc Burns, Rondel Sorrillo and Richard “Torpedo” Thompson will do battle in the second men’s 4x100m qualifying heat. Great Britain, France and St Kitts and Nevis are expected to be among the tougher opponents for the T&T sprinters as they bid for a top-two finish and an automatic berth in the 9.56pm final. Bledman is the 2015 men’s 100m world leader with a 10.01 seconds run, while Thompson is third thanks to his 10.04 dash a fortnight ago. Sorrillo and Burns are joint-22nd at 10.17. Boldon said that while he is expecting a good showing from T&T in the men’s sprint relay, a trip to the podium is not a guaranteed outcome. “In the next cycle of Worlds this year, Olympics next year, and then Worlds in 2017, we don’t have much room for error because some of the other teams in the world have gotten better. On the men’s side I don’t think we can have some of the problems that we’ve had--maybe from third (leg) to Richard--and survive and get a medal. “This meet is good, but it’s not a World Championships, it is not an Olympics. To me this needs to be sort of a training ground and a proving ground to show that when the pressure is on, T&T relay teams are going to be the ones that don’t make the mistake. Let everybody else make the mistake, and hopefully through that we can get ready for what is to come at the World Championships. World Championships is going to be as competitive a field as this group of athletes has ever faced.” Janeil Bellille, Romona Modeste, Magnolia Howell and Alena Brooks are expected to be on show for T&T today in the third and final women’s 4x400m qualifying heat. That race is scheduled for 8.53pm, and will also feature a strong United States quartet, as well as Italy, Poland and Canada. Again, a top-two finish would secure a place in tomorrow’s final. Charlie Joseph, one of two coaches here in Nassau with the T&T team, told the Express he expects the men and women who will represent the Red, White and Black at the 2015 IAAF World Relays to improve on the country’s 2014 performance. “I am hoping for three medals again, but different medals this time…different colour.”

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Major announcements will be made in the coming weeks as the Trinidad and Tobago Olympic Committee  (TTOC) 10 or more Olympic Gold medals by the year 2024 #10golds24 project enters a new phase.

Launched in December last year .  Fund raising for 10golds24 kicked off with the participation of the TTOC president Brian Lewis in the Trinidad and Tobago International  Marathon On January 25th.

Interest in partnering with the TTOC 10 gold project is high and has resulted in discussions with a diverse group of private and public sector companies.

As part of the 10golds24 athlete welfare and preparation programme a request has been made to Government to establish an expedited elite athlete housing assistance programme.

In pursuit of its athlete welfare priority the TTOC is working with Guardian Group to design and develop a sport focused group medical insurance plan.

Also in progress is the creation of a medical services network which will provide athletes with discounted and expedited sport medicine and sport science services and support.

Eight athletes have received Olympic Solidarity scholarship funding through the TTOC to assist with preparation for qualification for next year's Rio 2016 Olympics.