After 13 hectic days of filming and documenting several national athletes, London-based sports programme Trans World Sport’s visiting team, will depart the twin-island republic today, and head back to England to begin working on the documentaries.
Speaking to Trans World Sport assistant producer Simon Welch yesterday, he revealed that the trip to Trinidad and Tobago was indeed a major success. Welch and his cameraman JP Bassin, arrived in TT on December 8 to delve into the backgrounds of some of this country’s young and rising athletic stars.
They were originally scheduled to meet with Olympic javelin gold medallist Keshorn Walcott, Olympic Men’s Sprint fourth-placed cyclist Njisane Phillip, national cricketer Darren Bravo and the rest of the TT cricket team. Even though the duo managed to complete their intended schedule, they attained one extra day of filming and decided to visit the TT Tai Chi Institute in St James yesterday.
“It’s really been a warm and hospitable experience here in Trinidad and Tobago. We achieved what we originally came for and we even had the opportunity to visit the Tai Chi Institute today (yesterday). We received an invitation from Sifu Rahaman Khabir and we couldn’t refuse this offer to educate us a bit more on this country’s hidden talents,” stated Welch.
Over the past two weeks, Welch and his cameraman have been touring the islands and visiting the homes and training sessions of these national athletes. Their goal was to uncover the lifestyles, backgrounds and social lives of the athletes and investigate the challenging journeys each went through toward achieving international stardom.
When they return to England, the duo and the rest of their Trans World Sport team will begin the precise editing of their attained footage. They will be producing four one-hour documentaries on each athlete, that will be aired across 146 countries throughout January and February.
“Half of our work is done. We were able to get a lot of footage (filming) in and now we have to go back (England) to edit our copy for the programme. The Tai Chi Institute was our last stop. We’re going to use our time back home working on producing some great shows on Trinidad and Tobago athletes,” he added.
Welch admitted that he was honoured to have met with Walcott, Phillip and the national cricket team.
“Keshorn and Njisane are quite different,” he said.
“Keshorn is so down-to-earth and humble. We also had the opportunity to visit Toco and meet with his mother (Beverley), so this was very good for us. Njisane on the other hand is a very upbeat and outgoing guy. Both guys are really clever and it wasn’t too hard for us to document them on film. They really are great young athletes,” Welch continued.
On Sunday, the Trans World Sport team attended the national cricket team’s second Twenty20 practice match against the Queen’s Park Cricket Club at the Queen’s Park Oval, Port-of-Spain. Here, they were privileged to meet some of the “Red Force” players and record in-depth interviews. This, according to Welch, was crucial for their documentation since cricket is such an integral part of this country’s sporting history and current sporting accomplishments.
“The cricket match on Sunday was great for us and especially for our programme. As you know, cricket is also a major sport in England and a lot of West Indian star players hail from Trinidad and Tobago. We just had to do a special piece of cricket here,” Welch mentioned.
The Trans World Sport crew leave Piarco International Airport this afternoon and have expressed a strong desire to return to the twin-island republic for further documentation and publicity of our young and upcoming national sportsmen and women.
By Jonathan Ramnanansingh
Source: www.newsday.co.tt