Gyasi Mer­rique

Se­nior Re­porter

gyasi.mer­rique@guardian.co.tt

The Cab­i­net is ex­pect­ed to meet to­day to come to a con­sen­sus on how much 2025 World Ath­let­ics Cham­pi­onships javelin gold medal­list Keshorn Wal­cott and 400 me­tres sil­ver medal­list Jereem Richards should be re­ward­ed.

This was re­vealed by Min­is­ter of Sport and Youth Af­fairs Phillip Watts at the of­fi­cial wel­come re­cep­tion for the ath­letes, which al­so in­clud­ed sprint­er Leah Bertrand, in the VIP Lounge of the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port yes­ter­day.

The Na­tion­al In­cen­tives and Re­wards Frame­work, which was im­ple­ment­ed in 2018 to pro­vide cash bonus­es to ath­letes who medal at high-lev­el in­ter­na­tion­al com­pe­ti­tions, out­lines that for a World Cham­pi­onship gold, an ath­lete is en­ti­tled to a $500,000 bonus. Win­ning a sil­ver medal would earn an ath­lete $250,000, with $150,000 for an ath­lete who wins bronze.

How­ev­er, when ques­tioned on whether the Gov­ern­ment plans to ho­n­our this sys­tem, Watts on­ly said, “To­mor­row (to­day) we will be at Cab­i­net, where we will dis­cuss with all our col­leagues and the Prime Min­is­ter, and we will make fur­ther an­nounce­ments dur­ing this week.”

When pressed fur­ther about the op­tions be­ing con­sid­ered, Watts re­mained tight-lipped.

“Well, the Prime Min­is­ter asked me for ad­vice, and I know ex­act­ly what I want to rec­om­mend to­mor­row, but we will wait un­til the Prime Min­is­ter makes that an­nounce­ment. But I def­i­nite­ly have things in store that I want to rec­om­mend.”

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands, how­ev­er, that among the con­sid­er­a­tions be­ing un­der­tak­en is an in­creased cash re­ward, as well as pos­si­bly nam­ing ex­ist­ing sport­ing fa­cil­i­ties af­ter both ath­letes.

Keshorn and Jereem: Medals mean a lot

Re­turn­ing to Trinidad and To­ba­go with their medals adorned around their necks yes­ter­day, Wal­cott and Richards each shared per­son­al sto­ries about why their re­spec­tive tri­umphs held sig­nif­i­cance.

Wal­cott, who rup­tured his Achilles ten­don weeks be­fore the 2023 World Ath­let­ics Cham­pi­onships in Hun­gary, said be­ing able to get to Tokyo healthy was un­doubt­ed­ly a main fac­tor in the out­come in last Thurs­day’s fi­nal in Tokyo.

“I was look­ing at the last World Cham­pi­onship fi­nal from the hos­pi­tal where I had surgery. So, just be­ing able to walk in there and know­ing that I am blessed enough to be here af­ter what I have been through, be­ing healthy, be­ing able to be sta­ble go­ing in­to a cham­pi­onship, know­ing that I am not com­ing here to guess, I know that I am able to per­form and com­pete, and that was the most im­por­tant part about it.”

Wal­cott al­so re­count­ed how re­mov­ing the self-in­flict­ed bur­den of en­ti­tle­ment to win a World Cham­pi­onship al­lowed him to com­pete with a clear­er mind.

“It’s been a long, long jour­ney of try­ing and try­ing. Af­ter 2012, I felt that the World Cham­pi­onship should have come a lot eas­i­er. And be­ing a pro­fes­sion­al ath­lete vy­ing for any type of medal, whether that be Worlds or Olympics, it’s not yours,” he said.

“You can nev­er say, ‘Ok, this medal be­longs to me be­cause I train hard and I do what I have to do’. I have been telling my­self this for 13 years, that I de­serve this medal, that it be­longs with the rest of the medals that I have. And I had to wait; I had to be pa­tient.”

Richards ex­pressed a sim­i­lar ex­pe­ri­ence, stat­ing that once he sur­ren­dered to what he de­scribed as the “will of God,” he was able to ex­pe­ri­ence the joy of win­ning.

“In track and field, we judge you to the stan­dard of the World Cham­pi­onships and the Olympic Games. Every oth­er medal is just a medal. And as an ath­lete, it be­comes very dif­fi­cult to have re­newed faith,” Richards said.

“Some­times, as hu­man be­ings, we tend to set the bar low so that we don’t get dis­ap­point­ed. It got me in­ter­nal­is­ing, think­ing about ‘Lord, what do you want me to do, and how do you want me to do it?’ So now, I don’t feel like this medal is mine; I feel like it’s God’s medal.”

NAAA ex­ec: Cham­pi­ons not made overnight

In the days since Wal­cott and Richards’ mem­o­rable achieve­ments in Tokyo, there has been a dark cloud threat­en­ing to dim their shine.

The Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC) has in­di­cat­ed that it will not re­new its long-run­ning spon­sor­ship of lo­cal track and field through its part­ner­ship with the Na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion of Ath­let­ics Ad­min­is­tra­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (NAAA). It would mean that vi­tal fund­ing for de­vel­op­ment pro­grammes, such as the pop­u­lar NGC Right on Track Coach­ing Car­a­van, the NGC/NAAA Youth Elite Pro­gramme and the NGC Na­tion­al Pri­ma­ry Schools Track and Field Cham­pi­onship, will all now take a sig­nif­i­cant hit.

Yes­ter­day, NAAA vice pres­i­dent Paul Voisin, in wel­com­ing back the ath­letes on be­half of the sport’s gov­ern­ing body at the func­tion, made a clar­i­on call to stake­hold­ers to re­con­sid­er their re­la­tion­ship with track and field.

Voisin said, “This is a try­ing time for the NAAAs in terms of fi­nance and de­vel­op­ment. I do not want to take away from the achieve­ments of our ath­letes, but I hope the min­is­ters and spon­sors, NGC, and all those per­sons can re­think their po­si­tion in as­sist­ing the de­vel­op­ment of these pro­grammes.”

He added, “It is most im­por­tant to us in these grass­roots pro­grammes to be able to bring it to this. Keshorn Wal­cott’s 13 years’ sac­ri­fice didn’t come just like that; Jereem’s sac­ri­fice was not overnight. It was a long-term in­vest­ment. So, we ought to re­mem­ber that those in­vest­ments should be looked at for the younger ones com­ing up, and the NAAAs are open for dis­cus­sions in terms of any­one want­i­ng to sup­port these pro­grammes.” (See page 38)