CLAY­TON CLARKE

Free­lance Cor­re­spon­dent

Last year's Paris Olympics men's 400 me­tres fourth-place fin­ish­er Jereem Richards opened his 2025 sea­son with a vic­to­ry in the men's 300m at the Jim­my Carnes, In­vi­ta­tion­al in Gain­sille, Flori­da, USA on Jan­u­ary 10.

Richards clocked 32.61 sec­onds to cross the line ahead of Amer­i­cans British Wilk­er­son (32.66) and Mic­ahi Danzy (33.34).

In Flori­da, the na­tion­al men's 400m record hold­er (43.78, set at the Paris Olympics) sped to his sec­ond-best ever time at the in­door 300m sprint event. The time is on­ly be­hind his na­tion­al in­door clock­ing of 32.10 clock­ing in Boston on Feb­ru­ary 10, 2018.

The Point Fortin na­tive is beam­ing over the time as he is con­fi­dent it sig­nals that a great sea­son is ahead for him.

"This is my sec­ond-fastest per­for­mance over the dis­tance so I am hap­py and it means that I am in good shape ear­ly in the year," said Richards.

The 2022 World In­door 400m gold medal­list told Guardian Me­dia Sports the win came de­spite he was not ful­ly ready be­fore get­ting to the start line.

"The run was okay I was not feel­ing 100 per cent so I am just sat­is­fied with what I was able to do. I was most hap­py with my abil­i­ty to main­tain speed."

The 2017 World Out­door 4x400m re­lay cham­pi­on is hop­ing to im­prove on the lat­ter stage of his race when he con­tests the in­door men's 400m at the New Bal­ance Grand Prix in Boston, USA to­mor­row (on Sun­day (Feb­ru­ary 2).

"I can prob­a­bly work on fin­ish­ing a bit stronger," said Richards.

De­spite miss­ing out on a medal at last year's Paris Olympics by 0.04 sec­onds, the AS­JA Boys Col­lege past stu­dent still hails the last sea­son as a re­ward­ing one.

"I will rate my 2024 sea­son as a suc­cess­ful one just was not able to achieve some­thing tan­gi­ble. But a les­son was learned that not, all bless­ings are tan­gi­ble."

Richards was named the top male se­nior ath­lete for 2024 by the Na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion of Ath­let­ic Ad­min­is­tra­tion of T&T (NAAATT), the T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC) and the First Cit­i­zens Sports Foun­da­tion.

The 2018/2022 Com­mon­wealth Games 200m win­ner said his na­tion­al mark (43.78) is the stand-out mo­ment.

Among his goals for 2025, the Abi­lene Wild­cats club mem­ber wants to re­claim the World In­door 400m ti­tle at the World In­door Cham­pi­onships set for Nan­jing, Chi­na, from March 21-23.

At the 2024 edi­tion of the glob­al meet in Glas­gow, Scot­land Richards reached the semi­fi­nal round of the men's 400m sprint and missed out on de­fend­ing the crown he won two years ear­li­er, which he re­ferred to as "The lows of 2024 were los­ing at world in­doors."

The 30-year-old is aim­ing to have a sea­son like no oth­er, say­ing: "My goals for this year are to have the great­est year ever and to be the best me that I can be."

His wish for the cit­i­zens of T&T is that "we get se­ri­ous about our re­la­tion­ship with Je­sus Christ".