Trinidad and Tobago athletes displayed grit and determination on Saturday the opening day of the 2014 Nanjing Youth Olympic Games.
At the Nanjing Olympic Sports Centre Natatorium,  David Mc Leod was the first T & T athlete in action.
Mc Leod,  a Caribbean Islands Swimming Championships (CISC) and Carifta champion,  placed second in heat two of five in the Men's 100 m backstroke preliminaries but 27th overall in a new personal best time of 58.18.  His previous PR was 58.72.
From the starter's signal,  Mc Leod was always in second,  splitting in 27.57 seconds at the midway point behind eventual heat two winner Canada's Javier Acevedo (57.87) and maintained his position for two laps of the Olympic-sized pool.
After the race,  Mc Leod said:"I am pleased with my swim because I felt strong and did a new best time.  It augurs well for my pet event,  the 50 m back,  on Tuesday (tomorrow) where I expect to be even stronger and faster and hopefully achieve a semifinal place. "
Mc Leod takes his final splash in the pool in the Men's 50m backstroke on Tuesday while World Juniors silver medalist Dylan Carter also dives into action on that day in the Men's 50 m freestyle prelims.
At the Youth Olympic Sport Park, T&T Beach Volleyballers Chelsi Ward and Malika Davidson battled but went down in straight sets 2-0 (21-17, 21-10) to Germany’s Sarah Schneider and Lisa Arnholdt.
Coach Sean Morrison said Ward and Davidson traded point for point up to 15 in the first set before the Germans imposed their will while the T&T team started too relaxed in the second set,  making too many errors and conceding  a big lead to the Germans from which  they failed to recover.
The T & T duo will try and look for their first points of Group E competition when they tackle Indonesia today from 3 pm (3 am local).
" Indonesia is even a better team defensively than Germany but we will try  to out-hustle them to score points tomorrow (today), " Morrison,  a national Men's player,  said.
Morrison added that he is looking to score wins over easier Group E opponents Bolivia and Congo for T&T  to advance  out of Group E, a group that also includes hosts China.
" Once the girls keep focus on their game throughout   we will be okay against Indonesia, "he said.
In sailing,  T&T' sole representative Abigail Affoo took to the waters of Jinniu Lake for the Women's One Person Dinghy from 11 am (11 pm Sunday TT time).
On Sunday,  Affoo put the finishing touches to her Dinghy and also had a trial race in preparation for today's race.

T&T athletes get there track and field campaign on the way on Wed 20th, with Jeminise Parris in the women's 100m Hurdles.

Interested persons can follow the progress of the T&T team at the T&T Olympic Committee (T&TOC) social media websites, twitter  www.ttoc.org and the Games’ websitewww.nanjing2014.org/en.

Trinidad and Tobago swimmer David Mc Leod and T&T Volleyballers Chelsi Ward and Malika Davidson will be the first athletes to compete for this country on the opening day of the 2014 Nanjing Youth Games.

Mc Leod will splash into action in the first  of two events he is entered in today from 10:30 am in Nanjing (10:30 pm Saturday local time)  in  heat two lane two of the Men's 100 m backstroke at the Nanjing Olympic Sports Center Natatorium. He is seeded 29th in the event.
At 8:00 pm (8:00 am local time) at the Youth Olympic Sport Park,  Ward and Davidson will spike off against the German team in Group E action in the 36-team competition. Group E is one of six groups and also includes Indonesia,  Congo, Bolivia and hosts China.

A sense of excitement is building on the eve of the Summer Youth Olympic Games here following a visit by International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach around the impressive accommodation and facilities for the athletes.

While the facilities and atmosphere seemed equally as spacious and luxurious as those during the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi earlier this year, the distinguishing feature, as befitting the ambiance of the Youth Olympic, was the wide variety of cultural entertainments on show.

These ranged from stands and presentations to a group of Chinese dancers performing a routine which would have seemed more at home in Germany than in the Far East.

It was this latter theme which best caught the eye of Bach, who appeared enthusiastic and keen to speak to as many of the 3,600 athletes attending the Games as possible.

Joined by an entourage that included IOC vice-president Yu Zaiqing and Executive Director Gilbert Felli, Bach walked around the facility before finishing with dinner alongside the budding athletes in the Village canteen.

This included a meeting with a South Sudanese runner, Margret Rumat Rumar Hassan, competing as an Independent Olympic Athlete during the Games because the world's newest country does not have a National Olympic Committee.

He also visited the accommodation of team members from Guinea affected by the Ebola outbreak which has already caused Liberia and Sierra Leone to withdraw from the Games.

Delegations from Ukraine and Syria where among others Bach met, with the German, who won a gold medal in foil fencing at Montreal 1976, visibly delighted whenever he chanced upon an exponent of his former sport.

He also met athletes from his native German team, as well as others from Romania to Jamaica to Mexico, as well as a multitude of Nanjing 2014 volunteers, workers and entertainers.

Bach's enthusiasm for the Youth Olympics may be less strong than that of his predecessor, Jacques Rogge, but he remained lively and his usual quick-witted self throughout the visit.

On several occasions he also asked athletes their impressions so far, and every time his enthusiasm was replicated in their responses.

Bach, attending the first Youth Olympic Games since he was appointed President last September, completed his visit by attending a Welcome Event in the Square at the heart of the Village.

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Sebastian Coe, back in what he describes as his "spiritual home town" of Zurich, where he broke world records for 1500 metres and the mile, has said the most important thing for athletics is to ensure the best competitors meet each other in both championships and other meetings.

The man now considered favourite to take over as the next President of the International Association of Athletics Federations next year, who had chatted briefly in the stands of the Letzigrund Stadium with another illustrious visitor, Usain Bolt, on Wednesday (August 13), said: "We have to get more young people to love athletics.

"I think, that's our great challenge major championships and great one-day meetings are a great tool to do that."

He made it clear that what the sport needed most were head-to-head meetings at both championships.

"My sons get up in the middle of the night to watch [Roger] Federer play against [Rafael] Nadal, or [Sebastian] Vettel race against [Lewis] Hamilton," said Coe, who has been speaking at the European Athletics Forum for Young Leaders in Sport being held here in accompaniment to the European Championships.

"Great duels are that extra something in sport."

There is, admittedly, a faintly ironic edge to Coe's statement given the relative infrequency with which he and his great rival of the time, Steve Ovett, met on the track.

Coe added that Sir Roger Bannister, the first man to run under four minutes for the mile and a gold medallist at Berne in 1954 at the last European Championships to be held in Switzerland, was one of his great role models.

"He inspired every athlete of my generation," said Coe, who first broke the mile record in the 25th anniversary year of the Four Minute Mile.

"If it was not for him, an Australian would have become the first human to run the mile in less than four minutes.

"That would have been hard to swallow for us British.

"Without Roger, the history of the mile would be less British. I always call him the Senior Partner of all great British runners.

"We all look up to him."

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Trinidad and Tobago will be well represented in today’s Limacol Caribbean Premier League Twenty20 final as T&T skipper Denesh Ramdin will lead the Guyana Amazon Warriors against T&T teammate Kieron Pollard, who captains the Barbados Tridents.