JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Wednesday, July 23, 2025

Keshorn woos fans

by

20160314

Olympic gold medal­list Keshorn Wal­cott cre­at­ed his­to­ry on Sat­ur­day, be­com­ing the coun­try's on­ly Olympian to de­vel­op a com­mer­cial ap­par­el brand.

Wal­cott launched his four lines of T-shirts at The Fan Club, Trinci­ty Mall, in the pres­ence of Sports and Youth Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dar­ryl Smith, T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC) pres­i­dent Bri­an Lewis, his man­ag­er Sean Roach and scores of fans.

The coun­try's sec­ond Olympic gold medal­list ex­pressed re­lief that brand was fi­nal­ly on the mar­ket af­ter so much time on the draw­ing board.

The ma­jor chal­lenge in ad­vanc­ing the project, said Wal­cott, was set­tling on the de­sign to gar­ner wide­spread pub­lic ap­peal.

Even­tu­al­ly, he ex­plained, the de­ci­sion was tak­en to use his lo­go and in­clude the T&T word­ing, which would en­sure not on­ly his brand would be in fo­cus, but the peo­ple of this coun­try, too.

"I think we hit it on the head. We did a few first–white and red –to start off and hope­ful­ly we will soon launch a lot more colours," he said.

Asked if he was feel­ing the en­er­gy of the pop­u­lace, Wal­cott replied, "I'm al­ways feel­ing the en­er­gy when it comes to the peo­ple, whether it be live or whether it be on so­cial net­work. It's al­ways good to know peo­ple are sup­port­ing you and this year, lead­ing up to the Olympics, it's good to know that in a few days you can post some­thing on so­cial me­dia and so many peo­ple come out to sup­port. It's good to know that the peo­ple (are) not just sup­port­ing me, but the en­tire T&T ath­let­ics sys­tem."

Over the past few weeks, calls have been made for ath­letes to be­come cre­ative in find­ing ways to raise their own funds to pre­pare for com­pe­ti­tion.

Wal­cott said while this may be one of the rea­sons for launch­ing his own line of T-shirts, he was con­scious of the fact that it was al­so a means of con­nect­ing with the fans. "The fans are out there, look­ing for ways to con­nect with the ath­letes and I am sure that hav­ing some­thing that has an ath­lete's brand at­tached, will be some­thing that they would feel hap­py to have."

Wal­cott spent the af­ter­noon at The Fan Club, meet­ing and greet­ing fans as well as pos­ing for pho­tographs and sign­ing au­to­graphs with his fans.

One fan, Ad­i­nah Welsh said she left Matelot to be part of the oc­ca­sion.

"I was at the air­port when Keshorn came back from Lon­don with his gold medal. He is such a sim­ple young man, easy to talk to and very charm­ing. I bought one of each of his four lines of T-shirts. We all need to sup­port peo­ple like Keshorn, who are not de­pend­ing on any­body but wants to do it him­self. Every Tri­ni should pur­chase at least one. And the price is just right."

In his ad­dress, Sean Roach, who is Wal­cott's man­ag­er, not­ed that fans have been call­ing for lo­cal ath­letes to start mar­ket­ing and brand­ing them­selves. "The fans want to con­nect with the ath­letes and be part of what they do. This is Kehsorn's re­sponse. They can now have a piece of him," he not­ed.

Min­is­ter Smith de­scribed the move as the right way to go, not­ing that the days of wait­ing for gov­ern­ment and cor­po­rate T&T to fund an ath­lete were be­com­ing in­creas­ing­ly dif­fi­cult, giv­en the econ­o­my. "I ap­plaud Keshorn and his team on this ini­tia­tive. It shows why they are win­ners and why they are lead­ers. Every cit­i­zen should en­sure that they pur­chase one of these shirts, not on­ly be­cause it's a won­der sou­venir, but al­so be­cause it will as­sist Keshorn in his pur­suit of an­oth­er medal for T&T."

Olympic pres­i­dent Bri­an Lewis, whose TTOC pi­o­neered the move to have lo­cal brand­ed mer­chan­dise on sale, was es­pe­cial­ly proud of the Wal­cott team and their ini­tia­tive. "This is a big move and one which all ath­letes should be aim­ing to make.

"The days of go­ing cap in hand and beg­ging for help are over. Ath­letes have to start think­ing big and this is big," not­ed Lewis.

In­fo

�2 Avail­able at

The Fan Club

Movi­eTowne, PoS 290-1846

Gulf City Mall 290 -1840

Trinci­ty Mall 289 -0378

Abou­tique Mall 298- 5750

Price $175.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored