Joseph de Maistre: “Toute na­tion a le gou­verne­ment qu’elle mérite.” Eng­lish: “Every na­tion has the gov­ern­ment it de­serves.”

​Lead­er­ship mat­ters. There is hope for Caribbean sport lead­er­ship.

​The head­line read: “In­to the Blue: Williamsville teen re­de­fines free­d­iv­ing in TT.”

​T&T div­er Vic­to­ria De­onar­ine smashed her own na­tion­al record with a 45-me­tre dive on No­vem­ber 21 at the Blue El­e­ment com­pe­ti­tion in Soufriere, Do­mini­ca. The 18-year-old, St Stephen’s Col­lege stu­dent al­so sur­passed the men’s na­tion­al record of 40m—her pre­vi­ous record was al­so 40m—at Soufriere.

​Ac­cord­ing to the ar­ti­cle: “Her per­for­mance did not just make waves; it rewrote the lo­cal bound­aries of the sport—a sport which re­lies on breath-hold­ing un­til resur­fac­ing rather than the use of breath­ing ap­pa­ra­tus.”

​At 5 am, I read the ar­ti­cle while wait­ing for my flight out of Li­ma, Pe­ru, where, in my ca­pac­i­ty as CANOC (Caribbean As­so­ci­a­tion of Na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tees) sec­re­tary gen­er­al, I was in­vit­ed along with CANOC pres­i­dent Kei­th Joseph, to at­tend the his­toric Bo­li­var­i­an Games T20 crick­et com­pe­ti­tion.

Cred­it must go to the Ren­zo Man­yari-led Pe­ru­vian Na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tee for their de­ter­mi­na­tion and ded­i­ca­tion to en­sure T20 crick­et was in­clud­ed on the Games pro­gramme. There were “teething” chal­lenges, but for a first-time ef­fort, it set the stage for T20 crick­et at the Pan Am Games 2027 to be host­ed by Li­ma, Pe­ru.

​I was asked to be part of the medal cer­e­mo­ny for the women’s com­pe­ti­tion, where Ja­maica de­feat­ed Team TTO in the fi­nal. The joy on the faces of the Ja­maican play­ers as they re­ceived their gold medals spoke vol­umes about their ap­pre­ci­a­tion of what the oc­ca­sion meant. The Team TTO play­ers, some with tear-filled eyes, al­so re­flect­ed their ap­pre­ci­a­tion of what it meant. It was ev­i­dent that the gold medal meant some­thing and that the sil­ver medal hurt, as it meant los­ing the gold.

​I am con­fi­dent that all the teams—men and women—who par­tic­i­pat­ed came away with a deep­er ap­pre­ci­a­tion of the mul­ti-sport en­vi­ron­ment. The re­al chal­lenge is how se­ri­ous­ly the crick­et lead­ers in the Caribbean are tak­ing Olympic T20 crick­et. In this re­spect, it was en­cour­ag­ing to see Crick­et West In­dies (CWI) chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer (CEO) Chris Dehring in Li­ma, Pe­ru. A clear sign that at the lev­el of CWI, there is an un­der­stand­ing of the sig­nif­i­cant op­por­tu­ni­ties Olympic T20 crick­et will pro­vide for crick­et in the Caribbean.

​Al­so in at­ten­dance was Fara Gor­si, In­ter­na­tion­al Crick­et Coun­cil (ICC) de­vel­op­ment man­ag­er for the Amer­i­c­as, and Ve­da Bruno-Vic­tor, Pan Am Sports first vice-pres­i­dent.

​By now, you may well be ask­ing: What does Vic­to­ria De­onar­ine have to do with T20 crick­et? It isn’t so much about T20 crick­et but the in­spi­ra­tion and mo­ti­va­tion I felt that women and girls are re­defin­ing the fu­ture of sport in the Caribbean. From deal­ing with “old think­ing” lead­ers—male and fe­male—over time, it’s easy to lose hope that the cur­rent co­hort of sport lead­ers “seems to be miss­ing the boat.” But a few days of in­spi­ra­tion and mo­ti­va­tion amid signs that “all is not lost” and “it’s far from hope­less” were time­ly and nec­es­sary.

​Adding to this sense of hope was a meet­ing with Chris­tine Da­nia, the re­cent­ly elect­ed pres­i­dent of the Cu­ra­cao Na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tee. Her vi­sion and dri­ve for a bet­ter fu­ture for sport and the Olympic move­ment in the Caribbean left lit­tle to no doubt that bet­ter days are com­ing.