T&T's Akeem Stew­art, cap­tured shot put gold on Fri­day at the on­go­ing 11th Para Na­tion­al Track and Field Cham­pi­onships in Medellin, Colom­bia.Stew­art threw a dis­tance of 17.49 me­tres in the F44 class, bare­ly miss­ing the Colom­bian Na­tion­al record. His near­est com­peti­tor was a fair dis­tance be­hind, throw­ing 7.49m.At the en­cour­age­ment of the T&T Par­a­lympic Com­mit­tee, 21-year-old Stew­art, was giv­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty to be clas­si­fied as a Para-ath­lete and com­pete in Colom­bia.Stew­art was clas­si­fied in the F44 group, which is es­sen­tial­ly an ath­lete with a dis­abil­i­ty to the low­er ex­trem­i­ties of the leg. This ac­com­plish­ment ef­fec­tive­ly paves the way for Akeem to qual­i­fy and com­pete at both the Olympic and Par­a­lympic Games.

Born in Trinidad to Wayne and Ju­ni­la, Akeem present­ly re­sides in To­ba­go with his fa­ther, who is al­so his coach, men­tor and dri­ving force be­hind his abil­i­ty on the ath­let­ics field. Wayne Stew­art's vi­sion was to en­cour­age his chil­dren in sport and at the ten­der age of five, Akeem was in­tro­duced to track and field.Though Akeem ad­mits there were times he won­dered what was the pur­pose, he stuck to the sport of shot put and slow­ly made his mark on the lo­cal fra­ter­ni­ty. Akeem cur­rent­ly holds the na­tion­al record of 19.34m, made in March of this year at the Alvin Daniels Games.He cred­its his on­go­ing suc­cess to a pos­i­tive at­ti­tude, fear of fail­ure and the keen sup­port of his fam­i­ly, friends and well-wish­ers.