Page 37 - Team TTO PARIS 2024
P. 37
A Gold For Pan
What would be the most
appropriate end to the 2024
Olympics for the people of
Trinidad and Tobago?
Not only a gold medal win,
but a win on August 11, the
last day of the Games in
Paris.
Why? In 2023, the United
Nations declared August 11
World Steelband Day and so,
if a year later Trinidad and
Tobago's athletes win on that
day, it will be a hugely
significant piece of history if Olympic history was
the steelpan version of our made when the
national anthem is played at
the Games and broadcast steelpan version
live to a worldwide audience. of our anthem
The steelpan is an instrument was played for an
that was created in Trinidad Olympic medal
in the 1930s from discarded
oil drums. It has a history of ceremony
resistance born out of the
banning of the African drum
by the colonial rulers during slavery. Switzerland on July 5, 2022. The 2008 men’s 4x100m relay
team originally finished in second place in Beijing but a positive
It emerged from the urban tenements of T&T’s capital drug test from Jamaica’s Nesta Carter led to the Jamaican
Port of Spain and has evolved with ingenious team's disqualification from the event.
innovations over the years to become one of the
world’s more versatile and highly regarded musical This melodious rendition of the anthem was approved for
instruments. medal ceremonies like the Commonwealth Games, Pan
American Games and Central American and Caribbean Games
The steelpan is the national instrument of this country, since 2018, but the ultimate goal was to have the sound of
a status that was only made official this year by steel represent our nation at global sport’s highest platform.
Parliamentary decree on June 7. The road wasn’t straight forward but the IOC led by President
Thomas Bach gave the approval in January 2020.
Olympic history was made when the steelpan version
of our anthem was played for an Olympic medal The TTOC's Pan on de Podium goal is for the steelpan anthem
ceremony. to be played at all games under their purview.
It was first heard at a gold medal re-allocation Let’s hope our athletes can give us the chance to sing our
ceremony at the Olympic Museum in Lausanne, anthem with pride to the sweet sounds of steel in Paris.
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