Wel­come home, Keshorn and Jereem. Thank you for tak­ing this lit­tle coun­try and, once again, plac­ing it square­ly on the world’s most il­lu­mi­nat­ed stage. You’ve giv­en us some­thing to brag about be­sides our beer, rum and Car­ni­val. In my last col­umn, I spoke about their great per­for­mances, their tri­umphs, and feats that un­der­score the pure, uni­fy­ing pow­er of sport.

Lis­ten­ing to them speak at the wel­come home re­cep­tion held at Pi­ar­co Air­port gave me even greater joy and re­spect for these two ath­letes. Their grace and hu­mil­i­ty were over­whelm­ing. De­spite the in­evitable tri­als and tribu­la­tions of elite sport, their grace, re­silience, qui­et de­ter­mi­na­tion, and pow­er of prayer shone through. Their be­lief in them­selves, for­ti­fied by the sup­port of fam­i­ly, was gen­uine­ly touch­ing. One state­ment, in par­tic­u­lar, res­onat­ed with the force of a Wal­cott javelin throw, made by Wal­cott him­self: this coun­try is blessed with tal­ent, but it must be de­vel­oped. We re­peat this mantra like a dai­ly prayer, yet the tal­ent seems to re­main stub­born­ly be­neath the soil.

Con­sid­er T&T’s re­cent show­ing at the World Cham­pi­onships, where this coun­try was rep­re­sent­ed by a mere eight-mem­ber con­tin­gent con­sist­ing of four ath­letes and four of­fi­cials. In ad­di­tion to Wal­cott and Richards, there were Leah Bertrand (100/200 m) and Tyra Git­tens (long jump). The of­fi­cials were 2 coach­es, a man­ag­er and a medic. Gone are the days when T&T’s sprint­ers and re­lay teams were a fix­ture, a fear­some blur of red, white, and black in the men’s and women’s 100m, 200m, 400m, and 4x100m re­lay. Then you had the men’s 4x400m re­lay and a num­ber of 400m run­ners. Where have they all gone?

Ato Boldon, who knows a thing or two about track and field, has de­clared the cur­rent state of lo­cal track and field as the worst he has ever seen. It is dif­fi­cult to knock Boldon and brush aside his com­ments as just plain noise and old talk from a for­mer ath­lete when the facts are this stark. Once again, where have all the ath­letes gone? It is dif­fi­cult to ar­gue that Wal­cott and Richards’ tri­umphs will turn the sport around, and while their per­for­mances might mo­men­tar­i­ly in­spire a gen­er­a­tion, it’s like putting a tiny, gold-plat­ed ban­dage on a very large, fes­ter­ing wound.

I do not pre­tend to know what’s hap­pen­ing with the pow­ers that be with track and field, but when Boldon calls out the Na­tion­al Am­a­teur Ath­let­ic As­so­ci­a­tion (NAAA) and of­fers his ex­per­tise—con­di­tioned on a “gen­uine com­mit­ment to change”—it sug­gests a tur­bu­lent at­mos­phere with­in the sport it­self. In such a dire state, help should be wel­comed from any quar­ter. Is a man of Boldon’s cal­i­bre per­sona non gra­ta? One has to won­der if those in charge feel they have things un­der con­trol and would rather fail in­de­pen­dent­ly than suc­ceed with out­side as­sis­tance.

I have done this be­fore, but let’s do it again for some em­pha­sis. Let us com­pare T&T with Ja­maica, which had 67 ath­letes, 35 men and 32 women. They end­ed with 10 medals: 1 gold, 6 sil­ver, and 3 bronze. Ja­maica’s over­all to­tal of 10 medals was on­ly bet­tered by the USA (26) and Kenya (11). I hear the im­me­di­ate protest: “We can­not com­pare T&T with Ja­maica!” To which I re­spond, ‘Who should we com­pare our­selves to?’ Do­mini­ca, Bar­ba­dos, or Grena­da? Cer­tain­ly, no dis­re­spect to those coun­tries, but we’re not aim­ing to be the tallest kid in kinder­garten; we must com­pare our­selves to the best if we ever hope to be them.

It is in­ter­est­ing that dur­ing the said wel­come home cer­e­mo­ny, the Min­is­ter of Sport and Youth Af­fairs men­tioned the de­plorable state of T&T’s fa­cil­i­ties. True, some of them look like they’ve lost a fight with a cat­e­go­ry five hur­ri­cane, but let’s be clever about this: di­lap­i­dat­ed fa­cil­i­ties don’t stop the de­vel­op­ment of ath­letes; a di­lap­i­dat­ed plan does. What is need­ed is a prop­er de­vel­op­ment plan to find sprint­ers, quar­ter mil­ers, and field event ath­letes like Wal­cott and, in the women’s field, like Cleopa­tra Borel, etc. Wal­cott is right: the tal­ent is out there, wait­ing to be dis­cov­ered. Let us, from to­day, go ‘out there’ and find the tal­ent that is wait­ing to be un­earthed. Not every young­ster can be a foot­baller, bas­ket­baller, or hock­ey play­er. It’s time to stop look­ing for ex­cus­es and start look­ing for the next gen­er­a­tion of cham­pi­ons. They are ‘out there’!

TKR’s Cal­cu­lat­ed Chaos

Con­grat­u­la­tions to the Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers (TKR). The de­ter­mi­na­tion, prop­er plan­ning, and ex­e­cu­tion were the hall­marks of their vic­to­ry. The Guyana Ama­zon War­riors (GAW) were left want­i­ng in terms of their tac­ti­cal ap­proach to the fi­nal.

I know many arm­chair crit­ics felt mis­take num­ber one was GAW win­ning the toss and bat­ting first, with­out hear­ing Im­ran Tahir’s rea­son­ing be­hind the de­ci­sion. My on­ly sum­ma­tion was that he knew the weak­ness of his team was in the bat­ting de­part­ment, and his strength was in his bowl­ing. He must have felt that his team could go out and bat first with no pres­sure on his bats­men, and what­ev­er score they could com­pile, his bowlers were good enough to de­fend it. They fell about 20 runs short of the tar­get of 150, and that was al­ways go­ing to be the prob­lem. Once Hope and Het­my­er failed with the bat, no one else could have filled that void.

TKR bowled beau­ti­ful­ly, and on­ly for a brief pe­ri­od when Iftikhar Ahmed and Dwaine Pre­to­rius put to­geth­er a part­ner­ship of 43 did TKR look threat­ened. The tar­get of 130 for 8 was nev­er go­ing to be enough. Yet, as al­ways hap­pens in a fi­nal, things got in­ter­est­ing. TKR were cruis­ing at 114 for 4, need­ing 17 runs with 27 balls re­main­ing, and sud­den­ly, it was 116 for 7. At the end of Shamar Joseph’s im­pres­sive 17th over, 14 runs were need­ed from 18 balls. Fans went from cel­e­brat­ing to per­form­ing pan­icked breath­ing ex­er­cis­es. Then came the baf­fling mo­ment: Pre­to­ri­ous had 1 over left to be bowled, and for some strange rea­son, he was not called up to bowl. I fig­ured he would bowl the 18th, Joseph the 19th, and maybe Shep­herd the 20th, but they opt­ed for Motie. Akeal Ho­sein saw the gift and un­wrapped it im­me­di­ate­ly, say­ing, “Thanks, Im­my, I’ll take it from here; you can for­get overs 19 and 20”.

TKR won its fifth ti­tle, prov­ing that even a squad old enough to com­plain about the mu­sic on the ra­dio can still get the job done. Yes, they have an age­ing squad, but it is full of ex­pe­ri­ence, and that is what saw them through. What al­so amazed me was their fit­ness lev­els, as I felt they had to rest play­ers in be­tween games, but out­side of a cou­ple of bad re­sults, they looked to­tal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed and hap­py. Con­grat­u­la­tions to Dwayne Bra­vo on his en­try to the CPL as a coach and men­tor.

Fi­nal­ly, a word on Kieron Pol­lard: give the man a break. He speaks his mind, and if he wants to talk about be­ing booed, that’s his right. As is said in lo­cal par­lance, ‘Who vex lorse!’. I know all over the world there is boo­ing. I lis­ten to it all the time in the Eng­lish Pre­mier League, where a play­er plays to­day for Eng­land, and by the week­end, he goes back to his club and is jeered and in­sult­ed by the home fans. Be­sides, the con­stant jeer­ing seems to mo­ti­vate him.

Last­ly, as for why a fran­chise team is get­ting a na­tion­al award, let’s wait for the gov­ern­ment’s ex­pla­na­tion. But while we de­bate, re­mem­ber this: the true vic­to­ry isn’t in a tro­phy or an award; it’s in the po­ten­tial of this tiny twin-is­land re­pub­lic. Wal­cott and Richards didn’t wait for a per­fect fa­cil­i­ty or a per­fect plan. Their gold and sil­ver are the re­ceipt that says, “The tal­ent is here.” Now, let’s stop ar­gu­ing about who’s in charge and start un­earthing the next gen­er­a­tion of cham­pi­ons. The world is watch­ing, and frankly, they’re ready to be amazed again.

Ed­i­tor’s note: The views ex­pressed are sole­ly those of the au­thor and do not re­flect the views of any or­gan­i­sa­tion in which he is a stake­hold­er.