Keshorn Walcott lashed out on the powers that be at the "Rio Roundtable Review," hosted by the Ministry of Sport and Youth Affairs, at the National Racquet Sports Centre, Tacarigua, yesterday.
The double Olympic medallist spoke on his experience over the past eight years and vented his views on the non-existence of structure and development programmes for local athletes.
"In the eight years, I have seen no development," said Walcott. "Take my story, I am an Olympic gold medallist and in the past four years leading up to the Rio Olympic Games, I have seen no development, no help for the athletes."
The 23-year-old javelin thrower excelled once again, winning a bronze, T&T's lone medal, at the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in August. This followed his gold medal success at the London Games in 2012.
Walcott of Toco, is the first Caribbean men's athlete to win the gold in a throwing event in the history of the Olympics.
"You can't tell me you want me repeat as an Olympic gold medallist and I haven't seen any help, any structure put in place for me to repeat so I don't understand when you come and say you want to learn or lessons learned (from the Games) because obviously you are not learning anything because you are not putting any structure or development in place for athletes to develop. You always come and mention elite, elite, elite but you can't pull elite athletes from the air," a visibly frustrated Walcott said.
Walcott is the youngest Olympic gold medallist in the men's javelin when he won at age 19 and is the first athlete in any track and field event to win World Junior and Olympic titles in an individual event the same year. He is also the holder of the North, Central American and Caribbean junior record.
The session which was facilitated by Rawle Agard, was used to discuss successes and challenges of Rio and chart the way forward to Tokyo 2020 and beyond. It involved some 80 persons from all segments of the sport industry including athletes, coaches, sports physicians, administrators and media practitioners.
President of the T&T Olympic Committee (TTOC) Brian Lewis said the review had been an "extremely productive exercise" which offered an "opportunity for transparency and accountability".
"I think that active listening is a key part of the development of sport in T&T. This would have been the first time there was an open forum for candid and frank discussions that included the athletes, who were given the opportunity to voice opinions and highlight issues. The TTOC welcomes this as it is deeply committed to being athletes-centred."
Olympians Keston Bledman, Cleopatra Borel, Semoy Hackett, Kyle Greaux along with the Minister of Sport Darryl Smith, advisor to the Minister Gavin Warwick, National Administration for Athletic Associations (NAAA) president Ephraim Serrette, coach Lester Osouna, Sport Ambassador Daren Ganga to name a few, were some of the individuals that took participated in the review.
"A few of the issues can be solved in the short term though certain issues require systemic restructuring. For example, we need to have a tweak of the Elite Athletes Assistance Programme and there is need to revisit the Pathway to Excellence Programme. The important thing now is to move from talk and problem identification to coming up with implementable solutions."