THE Trinidad and Tobago Olympic Committee (TTOC) will host the first segment of a two-part webinar on Covid19 Bio-Safety Measures for Sports on Saturday from 10am to 11pm. The second half takes place on Wednesday from 5pm to 6pm.
This workshop will focus on educating national sporting organsations (NSOs), athletes and sport administrators on the many intricacies and guidelines to follow when travelling to countries for competition and other sport-related activity.
The programme will be chaired by TTOC officials; president Brian Lewis, Olympic covid19 liaison officer Rheeza Grant and chef de mission Lovie Santana, who were part of the Olympic delegation in Tokyo, Japan.
The trio gained a wealth of knowledge from their distant travel to the eastern hemisphere and have opted to share their insight of the many changes and new norms that athletes and administrators must be prepared for during international travel.
At Saturday’s opening session, the trio will share their Tokyo 2020 experience and the various measures that must be adhered to at competitions.
“We had to go through the whole process of covid19 countermeasures at different airports in different countries and then compete, among multiple nations, in a bio-secure bubble,” Lewis said. “It’s also been about a year going to online training meetings on awareness so that we would have acquired a certain amount of experience, especially the covid19 liaison officer.”
The second segment will feature presentations by relevant arms of the Ministry of Health, Ministry of National Security and St Augustine Medical Lab.
According to Lewis, the TTOC has been working closely with this lab because “their processes meet international scrutiny and best practice standards.”
At the Summer Games, a plethora of guidelines were laid down to minimise the risk of covid19.
The Japan government, Tokyo metropolitan government, International Olympic Committee and Tokyo organising committee spearheaded the fight to prevent the Games from being a super-spreader event.
Although some athletes and team staff did contract the virus, including three members of the TT delegation, the quadrennial event was deemed a success as the majority of events and ceremonies took place under strict health protocols.
Members of the Olympic Village were mandated to undergo daily antigen testing, restricted to their respective hotels, training bays and competition venues only and were given a maximum of two days to depart the venue after their final event.
TT’s Olympic chef de mission Santana added, “This workshop is to advise our NSOs as to what are the different steps, paying attention to details when coming to travelling out of the country. It’s just an introduction to what they should really know.
“We realised there are so many countermeasures that need to be in place and whether it’s a one or two-person team travelling out, attention to details must be paid.
There are so much little things that must be put in place prior to travel and returning to the country.”
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