Background
Trinidad and Tobago is a two-island nation in the Caribbean Sea that lies close to South America. The nation has participated in the Olympics since the 1948 Summer Olympics in London, and has appeared at every Summer Olympics since then with the exception of the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, when it joined Jamaica and Barbados in a political union called the West Indies Federation. Overall, Trinidad and Tobago had participated in eighteen Olympic games (15 Summer Olympics and 3 Winter Olympics) between its 1948 debut and its appearance at the Beijing Olympics in 2008, and its fifteenth Olympic game since its independence, which was in 1962. The Trinidadian delegation in Beijing comprised its largest delegation by far, with 28 athletes. The previous record included 19 athletes, which happened in 1968, 1972, 2000 and 2004. Between 1948 and 2008, Trinidad and Tobago accumulated 14 medals (one gold, five silver and eight bronze); two of those medals were won in Beijing (a silver in the men's 100 meters another in the men's 4x100 meters relay). Richard Thompson, a male track athlete, medaled in the men's 100 meters but also medaled as a member of the Trinidadian relay team. All Olympians participating in Beijing for Trinidad and Tobago, with the exception of Dexter St. Louis in table tennis, were planning as of the end of the Beijing Olympics to continue training for future Olympic games.
Trinidad and Tobago's flagbearer at the ceremonies was swimmer George Bovell, who won a bronze medal in the 2004 Athens Olympics as part of the Trinidadian delegation.
Trinidad and Tobago's athletes arrived in Beijing's Olympic Village early in August. The athletic contingent of Trinidad and Tobago's team arrived in Beijing from Finland on August 5, 2008, but spent only one night before leaving for a training camp in nearby South Korea. The athletics team returned on August 11. Sharpshooter Roger Daniel, along with the entirety of Trinidad and Tobago Olympic Committee's administrative and medical staff, had arrived in the Olympic Village by August 3, 2008.
Read more about this topic: Trinidad And Tobago At The 2008 Summer Olympics
Famous quotes containing the word background:
“Pilate with his question “What is truth?” is gladly trotted out these days as an advocate of Christ, so as to arouse the suspicion that everything known and knowable is an illusion and to erect the cross upon that gruesome background of the impossibility of knowledge.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“I had many problems in my conduct of the office being contrasted with President Kennedy’s conduct in the office, with my manner of dealing with things and his manner, with my accent and his accent, with my background and his background. He was a great public hero, and anything I did that someone didn’t approve of, they would always feel that President Kennedy wouldn’t have done that.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“In the true sense one’s native land, with its background of tradition, early impressions, reminiscences and other things dear to one, is not enough to make sensitive human beings feel at home.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)