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Wednesday, July 23, 2025

Mom, ex-coach proud of showing

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20160818

JOEL JULIEN

"She may not have won a medal but she has won the re­spect of all her peers and should win the re­spect of all the cit­i­zens in this coun­try."

This was the state­ment made by Kelvin Nan­coo, the for­mer coach of sprint­er Michelle-Lee Ahye, fol­low­ing her sixth place fin­ish in the women's 200 me­tres fi­nal at the Olympics Games in Rio de Janeiro last night.

Ahye al­so placed sixth in the women's 100 me­tres fi­nal on Sat­ur­day.

Con­tact­ed mo­ments af­ter view­ing last night's race, Nan­coo said plac­ing sixth in both events was some­thing to be laud­ed. He an­tic­i­pates that Ahye will medal in the Tokyo Olympics in 2020.

The T&T Guardian al­so con­tact­ed Ahye's moth­er Rac­quel, who said she was ex­treme­ly proud of her daugh­ter's per­for­mances in Brazil.

"Her per­for­mance was out of this world. I am a very proud and hap­py moth­er of my daugh­ter's per­for­mance. She re­al­ly put up a fight for Trinidad and To­ba­go," Ahye (R) said af­ter watch­ing the race on tele­vi­sion.

Asked what is the first thing she will tell her daugh­ter when they next com­mu­ni­cate, Ahye (R) laughed and said: "I want her shoes!" She added: "She was de­ter­mined to go there and bring back a medal and she end­ed up set­ting a new na­tion­al record in Brazil so that made me ex­tra proud."

Ahye ran 22.25 sec­onds in the 200 me­tres semi­fi­nals to break the pre­vi­ous na­tion­al record of 22.33, which she set at the Na­tion­al Cham­pi­onships in June.

Her moth­er last night thanked the pub­lic for their con­tin­ued sup­port of her daugh­ter. "I thank the Almighty that He gave her that strength to per­form with­out in­juries. She tried her best and she showed us she can do it," she said.

Nan­coo said Ahye's per­for­mances at Rio were com­mend­able.

"Michelle has not pre­pared in the way of a re­al 200 me­tre ath­lete, but we can say she has run the best for a Trinidad and To­ba­go woman ever and what is in­stru­men­tal is that once Michelle gets hunger, which I know in two years will hap­pen, Michelle will be one of the great­est sprint­ers in the his­to­ry of Trinidad and To­ba­go," Nan­coo said.

"I know in the next Olympics she will medal gold or sil­ver, I have no doubt about that. In four years' time she will be a force to be reck­oned with and then four years lat­er she will have an ex­cel­lent chance again, her time is near but it just was not now."

Nan­coo said, how­ev­er, that she has some work over the next four years.

"I think she needs to strength­en up more, her leg speed is great, her turnover is ex­cel­lent but just that strength is miss­ing and that is all that is miss­ing. I think she will do won­der­ful­ly well in Tokyo and be­yond. We should be proud to have an ath­lete like Michelle.

"Sixth place is the sixth best woman in he world and she did it at 100 (me­tres) and 200 (me­tres), that is a plus for Trinidad and To­ba­go," he said.


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