An elat­ed Min­is­ter of Sports Anil Roberts yes­ter­day paid trib­ute to the coun­try's sec­ond Olympic gold medal­ist, Keshorn Wal­cott, not­ing that his suc­cess in yes­ter­day's javelin event at the Olympics could not have come at a bet­ter time. Com­ment­ing on Wal­cott's his­toric achieve­ment, Roberts said: "God is good. In a time when some cit­i­zens have had their prop­er­ties and life turned up­side down by the flood­ing of their homes, up comes a young bright star from To­co to in­ject some in­spi­ra­tion, pride and glo­ry on the faces of the peo­ple of T&T." Roberts said the vic­to­ry had not sunk in 'as yet'. "But for Wal­cott to move from be­ing World Ju­nior Cham­pi­on to Olympic cham­pi­on is six weeks, is just un­heard of. It's an un­prece­dent­ed achieve­ment."

The Min­is­ter who pre­sent­ed Wal­cott with equip­ment to par­tic­i­pate at the Ju­nior Cham­pi­onships when he emerged cham­pi­on, said the coun­try could take ex­am­ple and learn from Wal­cott's hu­mil­i­ty and calm­ness. "Even af­ter he was de­clared the gold medal win­ner, he proved to be a young man of pure class." Roberts con­grat­u­lat­ed Wal­cott's fam­i­ly, who he said had pro­duced a young man whom the coun­try could use as a role mod­el. "Such is his de­meanour, and I am sure this suc­cess will not change him." Roberts al­so paid trib­ute to his Cuban coach, Is­mael Mas­tra­pa, a de­vel­op­ment ath­let­ic coach who has worked with Wal­cott for the past two years and is at­tached to the Sports Com­pa­ny (Sportt). "I can­not com­mend his Cuban coach enough for the tremen­dous work he has done with Wal­cott to help him de­vel­op. We are now look­ing at an ath­lete who can dom­i­nate this event for the next 16 years, giv­en his age of 19." Min­is­ter Roberts is ex­pect­ed to lead the wel­com­ing par­ty at Pi­ar­co, who will be greet­ing the lo­cal ath­letes when they re­turn home to­day.

T&T in Lon­don

Medal Win­ners

Gold

Keshorn Wal­cott–men's javelin fi­nal–84.58 me­tres

Bronze

Lalonde Gor­don–men's 400m fi­nal–44.52 sec­onds

Men's 4 x 400m re­lay (Lalonde Gor­don, Jar­rin Solomon, Ade Al­leyne-Forte, De­on Lendore)–2:59.40 NR

Men's 4 x 100m re­lay (Ke­ston Bled­man, Marc Burns, Em­manuel Cal­len­dar, Richard Thomp­son) - 38.12 sec­onds

Oth­er Fi­nal­ists:

Se­moy Hack­ett–women's 200m fi­nal–eight–22.87 sec­onds

Njisane Phillip–men's keirin–sev­enth

Njisane Phillip–match sprint–fourth

Richard Thomp­son–men's 100m fi­nal–sev­enth–9.98 sec­onds

Kel­ly-Ann Bap­tiste–women's 100m fi­nal–sixth–10.94 sec­onds

George Bovell III–men's 50m freestyle fi­nal–sev­enth–21.82 sec­onds

Je­hue Gor­don–men's 400m hur­dles fi­nal–sixth–48.86 sec­onds

Women's 4 x 100 re­lay fi­nal–Michell Lee Ahy­ee, Kel­ly-Ann Bap­tiste, Kai Selvon, Se­moy Hack­ett.