Gyasi Mer­rique

Se­nior Re­porter

gyasi.mer­rique@cnc3.co.tt

T&T ath­letes Keshorn Wal­cott and Jereem Richards en­sured that Trinidad and To­ba­go’s medal drought at glob­al ath­let­ics meets did not ex­tend to a decade yes­ter­day, af­ter com­ing away from the 2025 World Ath­let­ics Cham­pi­onships in Tokyo with gold and sil­ver medals in the javelin and 400 me­tres events, re­spec­tive­ly, on day six of the cham­pi­onships.

Be­fore yes­ter­day’s dou­ble-medal ef­fort, T&T had gone un­re­ward­ed at the 2020 and 2024 Olympic Games in Japan and France, re­spec­tive­ly, as well as at the 2019, 2022, and 2023 World Ath­let­ics Cham­pi­onships in Qatar, Unit­ed States and Hun­gary, re­spec­tive­ly.

Wal­cott, T&T’s last Olympic medal­list when he pro­duced a bronze medal at the 2016 Brazil games, yes­ter­day cap­tured that elu­sive World Cham­pi­onship medal in the men’s javelin, hurl­ing the spear 88.16 me­tres on his fourth at­tempt in the fi­nal, which was good enough to beat a class field of some of the best ath­letes in the dis­ci­pline.

Al­ready an Olympic gold and bronze medal­list from Lon­don 2012 and Brazil 2016, re­spec­tive­ly, Wal­cott added World Cham­pi­onship gold to his set and was re­lieved that the 13-year wait for his lat­est glob­al medal had end­ed.

Two-time world cham­pi­on An­der­son Pe­ters, of Grena­da, placed sec­ond with a mea­sure­ment of 87.38 me­tres. Pe­ters, who won the event in Do­ha 2019 and Eu­gene 2022, pro­duced the sil­ver medal-win­ning at­tempt on his third throw, while Amer­i­can Cur­tis Thomp­son was third with a throw of 88.67m.

​Ger­many’s Ju­lian We­ber, who pro­duced the lead­ing throw in qual­i­fy­ing with 87.21m, was on­ly able to man­age 86.11 on his sec­ond throw and placed fifth. Kenya’s 2015 world cham­pi­on Julius Yego was sixth with a best dis­tance of 85.54 me­tres. De­fend­ing world and Olympic cham­pi­on Neer­aj Chopra was down the field in eighth, pro­duc­ing 84.03 me­tres on his third at­tempt.

In a video in­ter­view af­ter the event, which was post­ed by the Pan Amer­i­can Sports chan­nel, Wal­cott said, “It feels great, man, it feels great. It’s been a long thir­teen years, just be­ing per­sis­tent. 2016 has been my last time on the podi­um, and the world cham­pi­onship medal has al­ways been out of my reach, but fi­nal­ly tonight, I’ve got­ten it and I couldn’t be more hap­py.”

He added, “I’m grate­ful to be able to de­liv­er this medal for my coun­try be­cause I know the peo­ple have been a lit­tle bit rest­less when it comes to medals, but I am fi­nal­ly able to de­liv­er once again a gold medal to my coun­try, so I’m thank­ful, you know.”

The 32-year-old, who hails from Trois Roches, To­co, had al­so pre­vi­ous­ly won a ju­nior world cham­pi­onship ti­tle (Barcelona, 2012), a Com­mon­wealth sil­ver medal (Glas­gow, 2014), and Pan Amer­i­can gold and sil­ver in Cana­da (2015) and Pe­ru (2019) re­spec­tive­ly.

He shared yes­ter­day that a 13-year wait since his Olympic gold medal and ​the nine years since bronze in Rio de Janeiro were filled with sac­ri­fices and self-doubt.

“I would like to thank every­one who has been there sup­port­ing me, you know. It’s been ups and downs, but I’ve had a lot of good peo­ple in my cor­ner keep­ing me there, keep­ing me mo­ti­vat­ed (telling me), keep try­ing and keep go­ing be­cause you know, there are times when you just want to say, maybe it’s too hard, maybe it’s not for you.”

Wal­cott cred­it­ed yes­ter­day’s medal to a switch from his long-time coach, Cuban Is­mael Mas­tra­pa Lopez, un­der whom he had most of his pre­vi­ous suc­cess­es.

Fol­low­ing last year’s Olympic Games in Paris, Wal­cott be­gan work­ing with Ger­man Klaus Bar­toni­etz, who pre­vi­ous­ly coached 2022 Olympic and de­fend­ing world cham­pi­on Neer­aj Chopra, of In­dia.

“I want to thank my coach for ac­tu­al­ly trust­ing me this year and giv­ing me the chance to be able to be coached by him. We made some good changes, and you can see it paid off tonight, so that was one of the biggest bless­ings I could say for 2025,” he said.

The Dream blocks Botswana 1-2

Mean­while, T&T sprint­er Richards, the last man to pro­duce an in­di­vid­ual World Cham­pi­onship medal with bronze in the men’s 200m in Lon­don 2017, pro­duced a new na­tion­al record in the men’s 400 me­tres fi­nal yes­ter­day. He clocked 43.72 sec­onds, plac­ing sec­ond and sep­a­rat­ing two Botswanans in the medal or­der. Bu­sang Ke­bi­nat­shipi took the gold with a world-lead­ing time of 43.53 sec­onds, while his coun­try­man, Bayapo Ndori, claimed bronze in 44.20 sec­onds, a sea­son’s best.

Yes­ter­day’s medal added to Richards’ 2017 200 me­tres bronze and the gold he cap­tured in that year’s cham­pi­onship in the men’s 4x400 me­tres re­lay fi­nal, along with Jar­rin Solomon, Machel Ce­de­nio and Lalonde Gor­don.​

Richards en­tered the Tokyo fi­nal with the third fastest time from the se­mi-fi­nal round. He clocked 44.12 sec­onds in a loaded heat num­ber two on Tues­day. Ke­bi­nat­shipi had a world-lead­ing time of 43.61 sec­onds in that heat, while Ja­maican Rusheen Mc­Don­ald ran 44.04 sec­onds.

How­ev­er, run­ning from lane the tough two in the fi­nal, Richards did the ear­ly run­ning to close the stag­ger and re­lied on his en­durance to hold him to the line to al­so end a per­son­al drought.

“It feels great. Glo­ry to God af­ter miss­ing out last year at the Olympic Games and not hav­ing medalled in a ma­jor cham­pi­onship out­door since 2017,” Richards said af­ter the race.

“I’ve been think­ing about it for a while, com­ing to these cham­pi­onships and leav­ing emp­ty-hand­ed, mak­ing it to the fi­nals but just falling short. It was dis­ap­point­ing for a while, but I kept pray­ing, and I didn’t give up. I kept ask­ing God to give me pa­tience, and he gave me pa­tience, and when my time came, it came, so I am just thank­ful to God for bless­ing me with this medal.”

Fam­i­ly, friends,

and fans laud duo

The sense of re­lief ex­pressed by both ath­letes was pal­pa­ble, and was even re­flect­ed by fam­i­ly mem­bers who Guardian Me­dia sought com­ments from yes­ter­day. Wal­cott’s aunt, An­na Lee Wal­cott, said, “You have giv­en youths of Trinidad and To­ba­go the op­por­tu­ni­ty to dream, to be­lieve in them­selves. De­spite many strug­gles that you have en­coun­tered along the way, you have shown that you have the grit and the de­ter­mi­na­tion to do well. You have shown them that af­ter every tun­nel, there is a rain­bow, and your rain­bow came as a gold medal.”

She added, “Con­grat­u­la­tions from your fam­i­ly back home and by ex­ten­sion the com­mu­ni­ty of To­co. We are ex­treme­ly proud of you.”

Wal­cott’s broth­er, El­ton, a for­mer Pan Amer­i­can triple jump cham­pi­on, said his younger broth­er’s re­silience must be com­mend­ed.

“Thir­teen years af­ter the fact, to be able to rise above all ob­sta­cles, all the pres­sures, all the in­juries, all the ob­scur­ing fac­tors, the pres­sure of com­pe­ti­tion and to able to still come out top against some of the best in the world is re­al­ly a mar­vel­lous and mirac­u­lous thing, and it’s a tes­ta­ment to hard work and ded­i­ca­tion over every­thing else.”

At the Lake­view, Point Fortin home of a close rel­a­tive of Richards, fam­i­ly mem­bers and friends gath­ered for an ear­ly morn­ing watch par­ty, with the ath­lete lov­ing­ly called “The Dream” fac­ing the starters’ or­ders at 9.10 am.

Sec­onds lat­er, they erupt­ed with un­bri­dled joy as Richards crossed the line be­hind Botswana’s Ke­bi­nat­shipi, bring­ing a po­tent sense of re­lief.

Aunt Jan­ice Wil­son-Fe­lix stat­ed, “I must say that I am very proud of him. Not on­ly be­cause he is my nephew, but be­cause, as far as I am con­cerned, he is the most con­sis­tent ath­lete in Trinidad and To­ba­go. Win, lose, or draw, our fam­i­ly is al­ways be­hind him. He has a strong dream team, and we will sup­port him re­gard­less of what­ev­er.”

Watts: Re­wards

be­ing dis­cussed

Min­is­ter of Sport and Youth Af­fairs Phillip Watts was among the many peo­ple who sent con­grat­u­la­to­ry mes­sages to the ath­letes.

He told Guardian Me­dia last evening that the Cab­i­net had al­ready ini­ti­at­ed dis­cus­sions on an ap­pro­pri­ate re­ward for both men, but stopped short of the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a na­tion­al hol­i­day.

Speak­ing ahead of the Caribbean launch of the re­gion­al hu­man de­vel­op­ment re­port at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre, Port-of-Spain, Watts said, “We are work­ing on that right now. We dis­cussed it at Cab­i­net, and we are work­ing on some­thing. By next week Mon­day, you should hear some­thing about that. We are proud of our ath­letes. We will meet with Keshorn on Sun­day. I think he is land­ing at around 1 pm, and un­less that changes, we will be there to greet him.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar

hails na­tion­al he­roes

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar com­mend­ed the per­se­ver­ance and ded­i­ca­tion of Wal­cott and Richards fol­low­ing their medal suc­cess­es.

In an of­fi­cial state­ment, the PM said, “On be­half of the Gov­ern­ment and peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go, I ex­tend our deep­est and heart­felt con­grat­u­la­tions to Keshorn Wal­cott on his out­stand­ing gold medal achieve­ment. You have once again made our na­tion proud, stand­ing as a true rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the re­silience, strength, and ded­i­ca­tion of our peo­ple. Well done, Keshorn!

“I ex­tend sin­cere con­grat­u­la­tions to Jereem Richards on his out­stand­ing per­for­mance at the World Ath­let­ics Cham­pi­onships, win­ning sil­ver and set­ting a new na­tion­al record. Your hard work, per­se­ver­ance, and ded­i­ca­tion con­tin­ue to in­spire the na­tion, and we re­main for­ev­er proud of your achieve­ments.”

The hero­ics of Wal­cott and Richards in Tokyo bring T&T’s all-time World Cham­pi­onships medal count to 15 (three gold, five sil­ver, and sev­en bronze). It al­so meant that one of T&T’s small­est con­tin­gents to the World Cham­pi­onships in the last 20 years is one of its most suc­cess­ful, with two out of this coun­try’s four ath­letes win­ning medals. T&T’s best haul dat­ing back to 2005 was a three-medal cap­ture in Berlin 2009, when the team took one sil­ver (men’s 4x100m) and two bronze (Ren­ny Quow—men’s 400m and Josanne Lu­cas—women’s 400m hur­dles).