Cherisse Moe

He be­came a world-wide sen­sa­tion, af­ter win­ning sil­ver medals in the 100-me­tre dash and 4x100 me­tre re­lay at the 2008 Olympic Games in Bei­jing, Chi­na. Richard 'Tor­pe­do' Thomp­son has in­deed done T&T proud. The T&T Guardian re­cent­ly sat down with the for­mer Queen's Roy­al Col­lege stu­dent, as he gave us the run down on his Christ­mas cal­en­dar.

What do you do on Christ­mas Day?

I break in Christ­mas in church with my fam­i­ly. On Christ­mas morn­ing, we wake up and open presents around the tree, then we have break­fast. Af­ter that, we go around to neigh­bours' hous­es play­ing in­stru­ments and parang­ing. In the af­ter­noon, we go by my grand­moth­er to eat Christ­mas lunch with the en­tire fam­i­ly. For the last two years, I've gone to Christ­mas Pas­sion in the night. I may be go­ing to that again this year.

What is your fond­est Christ­mas mem­o­ry?

Last year, my grand­moth­er was sick and we want­ed to spend time with her, be­cause we knew it would prob­a­bly be her last Christ­mas. It end­ed up be­ing her last Christ­mas be­cause she passed away two weeks ago. Spend­ing time with her was good. She was 89.

What do you like the most about Christ­mas?

Christ­mas is a time for fam­i­ly to be to­geth­er. I'm very fam­i­ly ori­ent­ed. It goes be­yond the Thomp­son fam­i­ly, the Clarke fam­i­ly on my mom's side comes to­geth­er as well. The bond­ing of the fam­i­ly is the num­ber one thing for me.

When do you open your presents?

I open my presents ear­ly on Christ­mas morn­ing. When I was young, I used to wake every­body up at 6 am to open gifts. Now, I would prob­a­bly open them around 10 am. My nieces and nephews wake me up now at 6 am to open presents, so I know how my big­ger broth­er used to feel.

Can you re­call your favourite Christ­mas gift?

I was about nine-years-old and I re­al­ly want­ed a Su­per Soak­er. When I got it, I was re­al­ly ex­cit­ed. I nor­mal­ly used to find all my gifts be­fore, but that year, they hid it from me very well.

Ham or turkey?

Ham. Def­i­nite­ly. No doubt about it. Turkey is a bit too dry. I can just sit and cut off pieces of ham and eat all the time.

Christ­mas or Car­ni­val?

When I was younger, I re­al­ly loved Christ­mas. But I'm al­so a Car­ni­val ba­by. I'll be back home for Car­ni­val. So I will have to put both of them on the same lev­el.

What is your New Year's res­o­lu­tion?

I hope to be a lit­tle more dis­ci­plined than I was last year in track and field with my train­ing. I am the sec­ond best in the world and I re­al­ly want to be the first.