Af­ter a month of pain and grief in which the na­tion fo­cused at­ten­tion on the deaths of four divers in the Paria Fu­el tragedy and with calls for an­swers, a month that saw mur­ders on the rise, on­go­ing rev­e­la­tions about the Prime Min­is­ter’s role in the de­ci­sion by the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion to with­draw the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er’s mer­it list and a cab­i­net reshuf­fle, the coun­try need­ed some­thing to cel­e­brate.

Jereem Richards of­fered that mo­ment of hope when he won gold in the men’s 400-me­tres at the IAAF World In­door Cham­pi­onships in Bel­grade, Ser­bia, on Sat­ur­day.

The win even in­spired Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes to post on the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent’s so­cial me­dia page: “You have done your coun­try proud Jereem and all of T&T salutes you.”

Richards had pre­vi­ous­ly told the T&T Guardian that he want­ed to win gold in mem­o­ry of his friend and track col­league De­on Lendore, who died in an ac­ci­dent in the Unit­ed States in ear­ly Jan­u­ary.

Richards, who has al­ways shown his spir­i­tu­al side in his en­deav­ours, al­so took to so­cial me­dia to thank those who played a role in his vic­to­ry: “I just wan­na take the time to thank every­one that lift me up in prayer, thank you to my fam­i­ly and friends for your sup­port!!! All praise and glo­ry goes to God. RIP De­on/Granzy/Un­cle Featon. This one was for y’all!!!!”

Sports Min­is­ter Sham­fa Cud­joe has promised recog­ni­tion of Ja­reem’s achieve­ment, la­belling it “phe­nom­e­nal” and say­ing he will re­ceive “an in­cen­tive.”

In a post on his Face­book page yes­ter­day Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley al­so praised Richards by post­ing: “Well done Jereem Richards.”

Dr Row­ley de­scribed Richards’ win as a “stun­ning per­for­mance in the men’s 400 me­tres ti­tle at the World Ath­let­ics In­door Cham­pi­onships in Bel­grade, Ser­bia.”

In an in­ter­view with World Ath­let­ics, Richards praised De­on Lendore as his in­spi­ra­tion. The two had shared a close re­la­tion­ship and even in death Lendore re­mains an in­spi­ra­tion to Richards, just as Jereem is an in­spi­ra­tion to young ath­letes in T&T.

Very of­ten in this coun­try, we of­fer “in­cen­tives” when our ath­letes win gold or medals at there high­est lev­els of their sport. But how much in­ter­est does the Sports Min­istry and, by ex­ten­sion, those in au­thor­i­ty, take in the ear­ly stages of these young peo­ple’s ca­reers? Of­ten­times, it is through their own for­ti­tude, tenac­i­ty and self-mo­ti­va­tion that these ath­letes reach for the stars and even­tu­al­ly do T&T proud on the world stage. The 26-year-old Richards is one such ex­am­ple.

It is high time the Min­istry of Sports does much more to de­vel­op a prop­er de­vel­op­men­tal pro­gramme and tries to work with the scores of track and field clubs in the grass­roots com­mu­ni­ties to find the groom more of the Richards, Michelle Lee Ahyes and Keshorn Wal­cotts - sim­i­lar to the suc­cess­ful mould of our Ja­maica coun­ter­parts.

Cre­at­ing the right en­vi­ron­ment to har­ness some of the en­er­gy young men and women have, giv­ing them some­thing that could help in­spire them may be just the pill T&T needs in the fight against the crim­i­nal el­e­ments as well.

It may sound like a pipe-dream but isn’t do­ing some­thing bet­ter than let­ting things con­tin­ue as they are?

Ku­dos to young men like Richards, Lendore, Lee Ahye and Wal­cott who con­tin­ue to make T&T proud.