Gail Alexan­der

Come out and cel­e­brate T&T's Olympic glo­ry to­day! Olympic gold medal­list Keshorn Wal­cott touch­es down at the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port this morn­ing, to join the rest of T&T in a pub­lic hol­i­day par­ty, to cel­e­brate his re­cent "gold­en" vic­to­ry at Lon­don's 2012 Olympic Games. Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar yes­ter­day in­vit­ed cit­i­zens to go to the air­port to "par­ty" and join a mo­tor­cade to Wal­cott's home­town of To­co to cel­e­brate his achieve­ment.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, in her ad­dress to the na­tion last night, said to­day will be a pub­lic hol­i­day in ho­n­our of Wal­cott's vic­to­ry, as well as the achieve­ments of the en­tire T&T Olympic?team. The PM said: "Wal­cott will be­come, with that gold, a bea­con of light and an in­spi­ra­tion to the youth of T&T to dream the im­pos­si­ble dream and do the best you can with your abil­i­ties."

Per­sad-Bisses­sar added:?"Yes­ter­day many of our na­tion­als hugged and cried as Keshorn stood on the plat­form and our na­tion­al an­them played. I was told some cit­i­zens (in flood hit ar­eas) stood be­fore what­ev­er tele­vi­sion sets they could find, tears stream­ing down their mud caked faces as they cried with pride."

Wal­cott and the 30 mem­ber T&T?team which cap­tured three bronze and the gold medal, left Lon­don last night and will ar­rive at Pi­ar­co at 9.45 am to­day via Caribbean Air­lines. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she will an­nounce to­day how the Gov­ern­ment will ho­n­our Wal­cott. The 19-year-old To­co youth be­came the youngest ever Olympic cham­pi­on in the mens' javelin throw­ing cat­e­go­ry.

Wal­cott gave T&T its sec­ond Olympic gold medal 36 years af­ter Halsey Craw­ford won the first gold for T&T at the 1976 Olympics in Cana­da. Wal­cott's vic­to­ry not on­ly made his­to­ry for the re­gion, but it al­so capped off a record show­ing at the 2012 Games by Caribbean ath­letes who made their mark against big­ger coun­tries. Wal­cott's 84.58 me­tres yard javelin toss cat­a­pult­ed the west­ern hemi­sphere-and the Cari­com re­gion-in­to Olympic records for the javelin event, for­mer­ly been the pre­serve of the Eu­ro­peans.

Wal­cott best­ed clos­est ri­vals, Ukraine's Olek­san­dr Py­at­nyt­sya 84.51 me­tres' toss and Fin­land's Antti Ru­uska­nen's 84.12 me­tres' launch. In last night's ad­dress-with Sports Min­is­ter Anil Roberts present-Per­sad-Bisses­sar said:?"Wal­cott's win was the gold lin­ing amongst the dark­ness of last Sat­ur­day's storm." Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so con­grat­u­lat­ed all oth­er T&T?medal win­ners by name-bronze win­ners Lalonde Gor­don, Marc Burns and Jar­rin Solomon.

She said T&T?had achieved gold in its Gold­en Ju­bilee year and had al­so achieved 12 fi­nals at the Games. With the team's bronze medal per­for­mance in the men's 4 x 100 me­tres race T&T al­so se­cured its best per­for­mance ever in all its Olympics par­tic­i­pa­tion, the PM said. From the par­ty at­mos­phere of yes­ter­day's clos­ing cer­e­mo­ny in Lon­don the T&T?team re­turns home this morn­ing to a big­ger par­ty, T&T?style, with a re­cep­tion at Pi­ar­co where Wal­cott and the team will be greet­ed by the PM and Cab­i­net.

Fol­low­ing the pub­lic re­cep­tion, a mo­tor­cade will take Wal­cott from the air­port to the East­ern Main Road to Ari­ma, then on to Va­len­cia and San­gre Grande. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said this will end in a trib­ute arranged by the vil­lage of To­co in part­ner­ship with Gov­ern­ment at the To­co Com­pos­ite School. She said: "I re­peat -you're all in­vit­ed to join us as Keshorn brings gold to T&T. The pub­lic is in­vit­ed to be a part of this his­toric oc­ca­sion in which we all ac­knowl­edge and cel­e­brate the his­toric mo­ment Keshorn Wal­cott has gift­ed our na­tion.