Jereem Richards sped to a spec­tac­u­lar sil­ver medal in the men’s 400 me­tres fi­nal at the World Out­door Track and Field Cham­pi­onships at the Na­tion­al Sta­di­um in Tokyo, Japan, on Thursday.

Richards pro­duced a strong fin­ish to de­fy the rain and the tight in­side lane two to cross the line in a na­tion­al record of 43.72 sec­onds to se­cure T&T’s sec­ond medal of the night, less than two hours af­ter Keshorn Wal­cott land­ed the men’s javelin crown.

The Point Fortin quar­ter­mil­er was beat­en to the line by Botswana’s Bu­sang Ke­bi­nat­shipi, who took the gold in world-lead­ing and na­tion­al record time of 43.53, with his com­pa­tri­ot Bayapo Ndori se­cur­ing bronze (44.30). The podi­um fin­ish was the sec­ond by a lo­cal ath­lete in the World event af­ter Ren­ny Quow’s bronze in 2009 in Berlin, Ger­many.

Richards’ time bet­tered his pre­vi­ous na­tion­al mark of 43.78, which he set when fin­ish­ing fourth at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, France. The 31-year-old was hop­ing to win gold and match his 2012 World In­door 400m crown in Bel­grade, Ser­bia.

“It feels great. Glo­ry to God. Af­ter miss­ing out on a medal last year and not medal­ing in a ma­jor out­door cham­pi­onships since 2017, some­times as an ath­lete, it gets a bit dis­cour­ag­ing and I have been think­ing about it for a while, com­ing to these cham­pi­onships and com­ing away emp­ty-hand­ed and falling short. It was dis­ap­point­ing for a while,” said the AS­JA Boys past stu­dent.

He shared that his faith helped him, say­ing, “I kept pray­ing and kept ask­ing God to give me pa­tience. When my time came, it came. So I am thank­ful to God for bless­ing me with this medal.”

The South Plains/Uni­ver­si­ty of Al­aba­ma grad­u­ate cred­its his fam­i­ly for the sup­port.

“My mo­ti­va­tion is my wife, my daugh­ter, my fam­i­ly, mom, dad, most of all, I would say I want to pull peo­ple to Je­sus Christ,” said Richards, adding that he was hap­py to achieve his child­hood am­bi­tions.

“The dreams and as­pi­ra­tions I had when I was a lit­tle boy. I saw my­self do­ing these great things and achiev­ing these medals. When I think about giv­ing up, I think about that young Jereem who want­ed to win, that want­ed to be on the podi­um. I keep work­ing hard to get to those goals. It comes with a lot of time, sac­ri­fice and most of all, it comes with a lot of pa­tience. I had to be pa­tient all these years and it fi­nal­ly paid off to­day.”

Quow of­fered con­grat­u­la­tions to his for­mer train­ing part­ner.

"It was good. It was epic to watch. He was fourth in the Olympics (last year). So I was ex­pect­ing him to do some­thing good. Af­ter I saw him run in the semis, I was wor­ried if he would re­cov­er. Back then, when I won my bronze, I didn't have a day's rest, but he did. He came out there and ex­e­cut­ed a fan­tas­tic race. We used to train to­geth­er so I know his ca­pa­bil­i­ties."

Pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion of Ath­let­ic Ad­min­is­tra­tion of T&T (NAATT) Ephraim Ser­rette was hap­py for the two medals yes­ter­day af­ter Keshorn Wal­cott pre­vailed in the men's javelin.

"Four ath­letes, two medals - gold and sil­ver - would as­sist the NAAA to seek new spon­sor­ship to al­low the fed­er­a­tion to con­tin­ue the de­vel­op­ment of the ath­letes. There is no pre­ferred lane in the 100m, 200m or 400m as every­body runs the same dis­tance. From the lane draw, the ath­lete has now planned his race. I thought he ex­e­cut­ed well. To come out with a na­tion­al record is ex­cep­tion­al."

Richards' moth­er, Yvette Wil­son, speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia Sports af­ter the fam­i­ly watched the race at his sis­ter's, Bri­tan­ny's Lake­view home in Point Fortin, shared that she was over­come with emo­tions.

"It was an out-of-body ex­pe­ri­ence as usu­al. I was flus­tered, ex­cit­ed. I am so grate­ful. Thank God. We have been pray­ing. I want to give God all the praise, the ho­n­our for this vic­to­ry."

Wil­son added that she asked God to give his son the courage to run out of lane two and earn a medal for T&T.

She said, "When I got up, I was at peace this morn­ing. We prayed for what might seem im­pos­si­ble-that lane two. We prayed to God for su­per­nat­ur­al strength to over­come that lane, and God came through for us."

Men's 400m fi­nal re­sults

1 Bu­sang Ke­bi­nat­shipi (Botswana) 43.53 (World lead­ing/Na­tion­al record)

2 Jereem Richards (T&T) 43.73 (Na­tion­al record)

3 Bayapo Ndori (Botswana) 44.30 (sea­son's best)

4 Rusheen Mc Don­ald (Ja­maica) 44.28

5 Za­kithi Nene (South Africa) 44.55

6 Yu­ki Naka­ja­ma (Japan) 44.64

7 Ja­co­ry Pat­ter­son (USA) 44.70

8 Lee Ep­pie (Botswana) 44.77

Medal stand­ing

Po­si­tion*Coun­try*Gold*Sil­ver*Bronze*To­tal

1*USA*8*1*3*12

3*Kenya*4*1*2*7

3*Cana­da*3*0*0*3

4*New Zealand*2*0*0*2

5*Ja­maica*1*4**1*6

6*Italy*1*2*2*5

7*Trinidad and To­ba­go*1*1*0*2

8*Botswana*1*0*1*2

21*Do­mini­ca/Grena­da*0*1*0*1

32*St. Lu­cia*0*0*1*1