Jereem Richards is con­fi­dent with his de­ci­sion to con­test the men's 400 me­tres at this year's World Out­door Track and Field Cham­pi­onships in Tokyo, Japan, which opened last night (T&T time).

The na­tion­al in­door and out­door record-hold­er will be­gin his quest for a medal on the sec­ond day of the Cham­pi­onships at 5.35 to­mor­row morn­ing when he lines up in the 400m heats.

He will be aim­ing to make it all the way to the fi­nals set for Thurs­day (Sep­tem­ber 18) and add the World Out­door crown to his 2022 World In­door quar­ter­mile ti­tle.

The Point Fortin-born sprint­er had the task of choos­ing be­tween the 200m and 400m events af­ter sur­pass­ing the qual­i­fy­ing stan­dards for both dis­ci­plines. His 19.86-sec­ond clock­ing on May 2 was quick­er than the 20.16, 200m qual­i­fy­ing mark, while his 44.14 post­ing on Au­gust 12 was un­der the 44.85, 400m ask­ing time.

The 31-year-old an­nounced his ar­rival on the glob­al stage with 200m sil­ver and bronze at the 2017 US Col­le­giate Di­vi­sion One In­door and Out­door Cham­pi­onships, re­spec­tive­ly. At the World Out­door Cham­pi­onships that year, the New Vil­lage/Fan­ny Vil­lage res­i­dent al­so raced to the bronze in the men's 200m. He went to cap­ture the 2018 and 2022 Com­mon­wealth Games, run­ner-up at the 2019 Pan Amer­i­can Games and reached the fi­nals at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics and the 2022 World Out­doors Cham­pi­onships, all in the 200m.

He showed his po­ten­tial in the 400m as a mem­ber of sev­er­al suc­cess­ful T&T 4x400m teams. As an 18-year-old, he helped the coun­try to bronze at the 2012 World In­door Cham­pi­onships and gold at the 2017 World Out­doors, the 2018 Com­mon­wealth Games and the 2019 World Re­lays Cham­pi­onships.

In 2023, Richards de­cid­ed to step up to the 400m and did so with suc­cess, win­ning the Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean (CAC) Games gold in El Sal­vador and reach­ing the semi­fi­nals of the Bu­dapest, Hun­gary-host­ed World Out­door Cham­pi­onships.

Last year at the Paris Olympics, he came ag­o­nis­ing­ly close to a medal in the 400m, fin­ish­ing in fourth in a na­tion­al record of 43.78, 0.04 sec­onds, be­hind bronze medal­list Muza­la Samukon­ga of Zam­bia (43.74).

Richards opt­ed for the 400m yet again at the Tokyo World Cham­pi­onships, say­ing that he thinks his chances of earn­ing a medal for T&T are bet­ter in that event.

"This time around, I will just be fo­cus­ing on the 400m (and) not do­ing the (200m/400m) dou­ble. It is a very dif­fi­cult dou­ble to do, es­pe­cial­ly with this (qual­i­ty) type of field. To get a medal (in the 200m), ath­letes will have to run a sub 19.7 and that is just to be in the top three and you are not talk­ing about win­ning.

"Not that I do not think­ing I am ca­pa­ble but I kind of putting my eggs in the bas­ket that has bet­ter odds and the bet­ter odds for me would be the 400m," said the Flori­da-based ath­lete, who is hop­ing to be­come the sec­ond lo­cal man to climb on­to the podi­um in the 400m af­ter Ren­ny Quow won bronze in the event at the 2009 World Cham­pi­onships in Berlin, Ger­many.

Richards told Guardian Me­dia Sports that gold in Tokyo is his tar­get.

"As a pro­fes­sion­al ath­lete, go­ing to any cham­pi­onship, win­ning is al­ways the ob­jec­tive. There are steps–do­ing well in the heats, mak­ing it to the semi­fi­nals and be­com­ing a fi­nal­ist. I have been there, done that be­fore and once it is the will of God, my ob­jec­tive is to go out and win the World Cham­pi­onship. I think I am in re­al­ly good shape. I have faith and con­fi­dence in Je­sus Christ and I know that I would be able to, through his will, I would be able to achieve great­ness."

The South Plains Ju­nior Col­lege/Al­aba­ma Uni­ver­si­ty grad­u­ate is hap­py with his prepa­ra­tions.

"Every­thing is com­ing to­geth­er in the right time, in the right place, by the grace of God. I am just trust­ing in the process and trust­ing through the grace of God, he will al­low my body (to) go places it has nev­er gone be­fore in the right time.

"I have been ac­cli­ma­tis­ing good. It has been a smooth tran­si­tion. I was wor­ried about (my) abil­i­ty to ad­just to the 13-hour (time) dif­fer­ence but I slept when I was sup­posed to sleep and got up when I was sup­posed to be up. I have been feel­ing good. My prac­tice ses­sions have been great and I'm just look­ing for­ward to com­pet­ing well."