It took a while for the news of na­tion­al quar­ter-mil­er De­on Lendore's pass­ing to sink in but his team­mate Machel Ce­de­nio had to come to the re­al­i­sa­tion: "De­on is gone."

Lendore, at the age of 29, died on Mon­day in a car ac­ci­dent in Texas, USA.

"First of all I would like to say con­do­lences to his fam­i­ly and his coach Mr Char­lie." said Ce­de­nio re­fer­ring to Char­lie Joseph, Lendore's lo­cal club Abi­lene Wild­cats coach.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia Sports on Wednes­day Ce­de­nio said: "When I heard the news last night, it was un­be­liev­able. I was like this got to be fake no way this could be true and then af­ter a while, it start­ed to cir­cu­late on so­cial me­dia and that is when re­al­i­ty re­al­ly hit - De­on is gone."

Lendore of Ari­ma was a three-time Olympian, who an­chored T&T to a bronze in the 4x400 me­tres re­lay at the Lon­don Games in Eng­land in 2012. He was al­so a World Cham­pi­onships sil­ver medal­list in the 400m event in 2015, won three bronze medals in the World In­door Cham­pi­onships.

"De­on, he was the back­bone of the 4x4 team, he was the back­bone of Trinidad's na­tion­al ath­let­ics team, he was our team cap­tain, he was the guy we al­ways ap­point to be in charge of us, do­ing things like get­ting to the bus on time. It's very sad and trag­ic that we have to suf­fer a loss for some­one like De­on.

The sea­son ahead is a packed one with the World In­door Cham­pi­onships card­ed in March, World Out­door Cham­pi­onships in Ju­ly and the Com­mon­wealth Games in Ju­ly/Au­gust. The lo­cal ath­let­ics team which in­clude Ce­de­nio will no have to face it with­out Lendore, a for­mer stu­dent of Queen's Roy­al Col­lege and Texas A&M Uni­ver­si­ty.

"We re­al­ly are like a fam­i­ly be­cause we came up through the ranks to­geth­er, all of us, we been on Sec­ondary Schools Games, Carif­ta, World Ju­niors, CAC (Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean) Games at a youth lev­el so when you ac­tu­al­ly grow with some­one de­vel­op in­to be­ing a pro­fes­sion­al with some­one, that's why it re­al­ly hits home.

"Yes, we are com­peti­tors but on the track, yes that's our job what­ev­er, but off the track, we all have a love for each oth­er.

Ce­de­nio spoke proud­ly of Lendore de­scrib­ing his late team­mate as a gen­uine per­son.

"De­on was al­ways as the type of guy that, no mat­ter what you know race day, he will al­ways be that one guy every­body goes to for ad­vice and would al­ways give the most gen­uine ad­vice, he al­ways make you feel bet­ter about your­self, he would be like that one ath­lete that would bring out your 'A-game. Not hav­ing him there any­more is re­al­ly trag­ic.

"Iron­i­cal­ly, just last week we had our meet­ing about World In­doors and you know they picked the team, it was me, De­on, Jereem (Richards), Asa (Guev­era), you know we all were plan­ning for the up­com­ing World In­door Games and one week lat­er this news is like 'wow'. Life is just so un­ex­pect­ed. I'm still try­ing to come to terms with this. This is re­al­ly, re­al­ly, re­al­ly sad that we have to lose such a great friend," said Ce­de­nio.

He plans to pay trib­ute to Lendore this sea­son.

"I'm per­son­al­ly ded­i­cat­ing this sea­son and go­ing for­ward to my boy, De­on be­cause I wouldn't be who I am to­day with­out him. He played a big fac­tor in my track ca­reer. He was like the big broth­er to all the younger guys my­self, Jereem, Asa, Jonathan Far­in­ha, Nathan Far­in­ha. He was all our men­tors.

"He was like that one guy we al­ways look up to com­ing through the ranks as I men­tioned ear­li­er he was the first guys that we knew per­son­al­ly that went to col­lege and at that point in time every­body want­ed to go to (Texas) A&M. That was like the No 1 school that was on every­one's list and then as we get old­er things to change every­body went a dif­fer­ent path but that's just the im­pact De­on had on all of us.

"We want­ed to be like him, he was like the fun­ny guy, he was cool with every­one, he was the one every­body want­ed to be like him, he was fast and he was just so hum­ble so it's like," Ce­de­nio sighed, paused and con­tin­ued: "This is like the worse news ever."

Ce­de­nio shared that he and his 4x400m team­mate learned of Lendore's death via news cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia and hoped it was a joke.

"We were all were puz­zled at first then news re­porters start­ed to pick up on the sto­ry.

"When I got up this morn­ing I say­ing, please let it be a ru­mour that a joke went too far or what­ev­er but then when news sta­tions start­ed re­port­ing it, that's when I was like, this is the re­al­i­ty that we have to deal with and com­fort one an­oth­er like the 4x4 guys, every­body is pret­ty much in a mess be­cause he was like the back­bone of our team.

"One of the things that peo­ple don't know, back in 2019 when we won World Re­lays, De­on was the guy who picked the or­der of the team. He was so in­flu­en­tial to us, we trust­ed him as an ath­lete. We had our team meet­ing with the coach­es but with his knowl­edge, he went to col­lege. He had all this ex­pe­ri­ence. This is what go­ing to hap­pen to the USA and ex­act­ly what he said is what hap­pened and we won gold so that is just the type of im­pact De­on had on all of us."

On the lega­cy that Lendore will leave for T&T track and field, Ce­de­nio said: "If you just look at his re­sume, World In­door in­di­vid­ual medal­list two-times, mul­ti­ple podi­ums we got on the 4x4. De­on would def­i­nite­ly go down as one of the great.

"I hope in Ari­ma, they name some­thing af­ter him. I hope his lega­cy lives on be­cause he left the com­fort of his home coun­try to go to the next coun­try to sac­ri­fice, chase his dreams and some­thing trag­ic like this hap­pens."