Af­ter over­com­ing nu­mer­ous chal­lenges, two of this coun­try’s top ath­letes, javelin throw­er Keshorn Wal­cott and cy­clist Te­niel Camp­bell, have of­fered re­newed hope for more medals, ti­tles, and in­ter­na­tion­al ac­co­lades in the com­ing years.

​Both were recog­nised for their hard work last year by be­ing named the First Cit­i­zens Sports Foun­da­tion’s Se­nior Sports­man and Sports­woman of the Year at Sat­ur­day’s 63rd edi­tion of the awards cer­e­mo­ny, which car­ried the theme “Lega­cy Takes Flight” at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA) in Port-of-Spain.

Wal­cott, the prover­bial “coun­try boy, comes to town” to date, is en­joy­ing a glass that is half full, hav­ing shocked the world by be­com­ing the first Caribbean ath­lete to have won the Olympic Gold medal in Lon­don 2012, an event large­ly dom­i­nat­ed by Eu­ro­peans. Years lat­er, he did not suc­cess­ful­ly de­fend his crown, but proved that his feat was no fluke, as he took the Olympic bronze medal in Rio de Janeiro in 2016.

​Last year, the To­co na­tive re­turned to the glob­al stage at the World Ath­let­ics Cham­pi­onships in Tokyo, Japan and clinched the gold medal by hurl­ing the spear 88.16 me­tres on his fourth at­tempt. This dis­tance proved un­reach­able for a dec­o­rat­ed field that in­clud­ed Olympic and World cham­pi­ons Neer­aj Chopra, Ar­shad Nadeem, An­der­son Pe­ters, and Ju­lian We­ber. In­dia’s de­fend­ing cham­pi­on Chopra man­aged 84.03m to fin­ish eighth, while Pak­istan’s Nadeem placed 10th with 82.75m.

​Wal­cott’s tri­umph came just a day af­ter he bare­ly scraped through qual­i­fy­ing. He pro­duced a best ef­fort of 83.93m in Group A, fin­ish­ing fifth and be­low the au­to­mat­ic qual­i­fy­ing mark of 84.50m. He then had to wait for Group B to fin­ish be­fore se­cur­ing his spot in the 12-man fi­nal. Af­ter col­lect­ing his award Sat­ur­day, Wal­cott was asked what is next for him. He re­spond­ed that he aims to de­liv­er a throw that will leave a last­ing lega­cy.

The 32-year-old said, “First of all, I would like to say thank you for recog­nis­ing my hard work. Thank you for recog­nis­ing 2025. It’s been a long jour­ney, but fi­nal­ly I can say that I’m a world cham­pi­on. It’s some­thing that I’m re­al­ly, re­al­ly proud of, know­ing that it didn’t come easy. But now that we are here, as you say, what’s next, right? Af­ter 2025, when I came home in Sep­tem­ber, I sat down, and I told my­self, ‘Oh, maybe this is it. Maybe I’m fin­ished’.

“But I think what is next for me, and ob­vi­ous­ly, there’s com­pe­ti­tion that I want to rep­re­sent my coun­try still,” he con­tin­ued. “There’s the Com­mon­wealth Games, there’s CSE Games for 2026, and I’m at the age where I can’t plan four years down the road any­more. I have to take things step by step; I have to take it year by year. So ob­vi­ous­ly, the ob­jec­tive is 2026. Be as healthy as pos­si­ble and be as great as pos­si­ble. But I must say that my goal for the long run is to leave a throw that has some sort of weight or some sort of lega­cy. So that’s my goal, try­ing to throw as far as pos­si­ble for the next cou­ple of years.”

Camp­bell’s goal is to be­come the first fe­male Olympic gold medal­list for T&T.

“There are so many youths here in Trinidad that I aim to al­ways in­spire. As you know, as you said, it has not been an easy jour­ney. I al­ways face chal­lenges, and chal­lenges that I al­ways have to be pre­pared to over­come.

“Back in 2023 or 22, I be­lieve, when I gave that speech at the T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee Awards, I was at one of my low­est points. But I did make a state­ment that I will rise above and be back at my best. To be able to achieve the re­sults I did this year, I know I have to go far. I know that path will lead me to Los An­ge­les 2028. My goal, hope, and dreams are to bring home that medal for T&T. To be one of the first women Olympic medal­lists amongst our oth­er ath­letes.”

Last year, Camp­bell won the women’s points race gold and elim­i­na­tion race bronze at the Pan Amer­i­can Track Cy­cling Cham­pi­onships.

Her per­for­mances at the track event earned her qual­i­fi­ca­tion for the World Track Cham­pi­onships in Chile. Mere mo­ments be­fore re­ceiv­ing her awards, Camp­bell de­liv­ered a time of 4:56.61 while rid­ing for Team PSL at the T&T Cy­cling Fed­er­a­tion’s Tri­als, to be guar­an­teed a spot on the na­tion­al team for the up­com­ing Pan Amer­i­can Track Cy­cling Cham­pi­onships in Chile.