Trinidad & Tobago advocates racial equality in sports

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13 July 2020

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Port of Spain, Jul 13 (Prensa Latina) The President of the Trinidad and Tobago Olympic Committee (TTOC), Brian Lewis, called for gender and race equality in sports worldwide, local Newsday daily reports.

Since his arrival at the TTOC, Lewis defends non-discrimination in sports and stepped up his fight in solidarity with several athletes following the murder of George Floyd on May 25th in the United States, the newspaper adds.

The head of the sports committee asked the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to lift the suspension of former United States medalists Vince Matthews and Wayne Collett, after their historic protest on the award podium.

Matthews and Collet won gold and silver, respectively, in the 400-meter dash in Munich 1972, and put up a defying attitude at the medal ceremony during the U.S. anthem was being played, in protest against racial discrimination.

Lewis told Newsday that the suspension of both athletes in force 48 years ago is incomprehensible and unrecognized as an unconscious bias, and requested the reinstatement of the athletes.

Collet passed away from cancer in 2010, so any recognition now would only be posthumous; while Matthews became part of the United States Athletics Hall of Fame a year later.

Lewis, who is also chairman of the Caribbean National Olympic Committee, believes that the actions taken by former U.S. athletes serve as catalysts for the sad climax of Floyd's death at the hands of a white police officer.