De­on Lendore will be dear­ly missed.

The T&T quar­ter-mil­er died in a car ac­ci­dent on Mon­day night in Texas, USA. He was 29.

An on­line re­port about the crash on ABC13 stat­ed: "At least two peo­ple are dead fol­low­ing a head-on crash in­volv­ing mul­ti­ple ve­hi­cles in north Hous­ton.

"Po­lice said the crash hap­pened Mon­day at 7.10 pm in the 11600 block of Ban­nis­ter Lane. A Dodge truck was head­ing west­bound on Lit­tle York, when the dri­ver lost con­trol, crossed the me­di­an and struck a Kia, which hit a tow truck that was tow­ing an­oth­er car.

"A neigh­bour told ABC13 he heard four crash­es right out­side his house. He said he ran out­side and called 911.

"Ac­cord­ing to po­lice, a woman that was eject­ed from the Dodge truck was pro­nounced dead at the scene. Mean­while, the dri­ver of the truck suf­fered mi­nor in­juries and was tak­en to the hos­pi­tal.

Ac­cord­ing to the re­port, Lendore (lat­er iden­ti­fied) was the sec­ond per­son killed he was the dri­ver (Lendore) of the Kia. Po­lice be­lieve speed played a fac­tor in the crash, but are still in­ves­ti­gat­ing.

Lendore, a na­tive of Ari­ma, thrived on the track in his short­ened ca­reer. He was a three-time Olympian, an­chor­ing this coun­try to a bronze in the men's 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 while he was al­so a 4x400 bronze medal­ist at the Pan Am Games in Li­ma, Pe­ru, three years ago.

As a ju­nior, he copped three sil­ver medals at the Pan Am Ju­nior Cham­pi­onships and a sil­ver at the Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean (CAC) Games.

Lendore of Ari­ma, who leaves his moth­er and sis­ter to mourn, went on to en­joy a flour­ish­ing ca­reer with Texas A&M Uni­ver­si­ty in the NCAA, win­ning the fa­mous Bow­er­man award in 2014.

Achieve­ments cel­e­brat­ed by his lo­cal club, Abi­lene Wild­cats coach Char­lie Joseph and when reached by Guardian Me­dia Sports, he paid homage to the star ath­lete.

Joseph said: "De­on, the way he start­ed at Abi­lene, I could tell from the first day that he would be some­thing spe­cial. He was a very hard work­er.

"And at that very young age, he had a goal and he just went af­ter that. I re­mem­ber telling him when he was leav­ing on schol­ar­ship, I said 'noth­ing you do when you're at school will sur­prise me.' I mean as far as run­ning fast. He was that spe­cial.

"He was a mod­el ath­lete on and off the field."

Joseph added that Lendore, a for­mer stu­dent of Queen's Roy­al Col­lege (QRC), was easy to coach and had the po­ten­tial to flour­ish even more this sea­son.

"I felt this year he would have been run­ning much faster than years be­fore be­cause when he was in school for the four years it took some­thing out of him, in­juries, he was just tired and last year at the Olympics was the first year re­al­ly he ran in­jury-free and we saw what he did, he ran pret­ty good so he was look­ing for­ward to this year," said Joseph who had spo­ken to the cel­e­brat­ed ath­lete just sev­er­al days ago.

"We al­ways talk. We spoke about train­ing He would call me and tell me, say 'I had a hard day to­day and he would tell me what he did. That's the kind of guy he was. From the time he went on schol­ar­ship to three days ago, he would call me every week, we al­ways talk."

The Abi­lene coach feels that Lendore has left a great lega­cy for the young ath­letes - his ded­i­ca­tion, be­ing a hard work­er which saw him achieve great­ly.

"I think he left a lot, a lot be­cause when­ev­er he is here, I would let him coach the younger ones and we would show them tech­ni­cal things and all these guys who are on the na­tion­al team now look up to him. So all those guys now are break­ing down like my­self. We just don't be­lieve it," said Joseph, still try­ing to term with Lendore's pass­ing.

George Comis­siong, pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion of Ath­let­ics Ad­min­is­tra­tions of T&T (NAAATT), who al­so ex­tend­ed con­do­lences to Lendore's fam­i­ly, was al­so dev­as­tat­ed by the news.

"It is a trag­ic loss, one that we are feel­ing im­mense­ly. Loss­es like these are nor­mal­ly dif­fi­cult to com­pre­hend and we are still grap­pling with it.

"De­on was one of our bet­ter ath­letes un­doubt­ed­ly but cer­tain­ly not apart from his ath­let­ic prowess, he brings a cer­tain vibe, spir­it to the team and we are cer­tain­ly go­ing to miss that. I've seen him grow over the years, 2008 when he would have made his de­but at the na­tion­al lev­el and most re­cent­ly at the 2020 Olympics."

Comis­siong, who served as man­ag­er of the track and field team at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in Japan, re­flect­ed on the mem­o­ry of see­ing Lendore, Machel Ce­de­nio and Jereem Richards push­ing a wheel­chair with Dwight St Hillaire fol­low­ing the 4x400m fi­nal.

"De­spite the team not win­ning a medal, mem­bers had ral­lied be­hind the in­jured St Hillaire. Where­as one may have ex­pect­ed blame and ac­ri­mo­ny, Lendore and the oth­er mem­bers of the team were cel­e­brat­ing St Hillaire’s com­mit­ment to fin­ish­ing his leg. In terms of team spir­it, one can­not ask for more."

Ac­cord­ing to Comis­siong, fol­low­ing the re­cent elec­tion of the new NAAATT board, Lendore ac­cept­ed an in­vi­ta­tion to serve on the Ath­letes Sub-Com­mit­tee, where he was ex­pect­ed to share his knowl­edge and ex­ten­sive ex­pe­ri­ence for the im­prove­ment of the sport.

In a re­lease sent out by his or­gan­i­sa­tion yes­ter­day, the NAAATT said of the beloved ath­lete: “We have lost a tremen­dous ath­lete, our coun­try one of its bet­ter sons.

"NAAATT joins with the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty in mourn­ing the un­ex­pect­ed and trag­ic pass­ing of one of its top ath­letes Mr De­on Lendore. The news of Lendore’s death in a ve­hic­u­lar ac­ci­dent in Texas late on Mon­day has sent shock­waves across the fra­ter­ni­ty.

"De­spite his young age (29); he has been a reg­u­lar on na­tion­al teams for the past 14 years. He was an ex­cel­lent quar­ter-mil­er who has con­tributed sig­nif­i­cant­ly to the coun­try’s over­all medal tal­ly in both the in­di­vid­ual 400m event and as part of the 4x400m re­lay team."

It added that Lendore was ex­pect­ed to play a ma­jor role this year on the na­tion­al teams to the World Ath­let­ics In­door Cham­pi­onships to be held in Bel­grade, Ser­bia March 18-20, World Ath­let­ics (Out­door) Cham­pi­onships in Ore­gon, USA, Ju­ly 15-24; and the Com­mon­wealth Games, Birm­ing­ham, Eng­land, Au­gust 2-7.

"T&T has lost a sport­ing icon and role mod­el. Lendore leaves a sig­nif­i­cant hole in the ta­pes­try of lo­cal ath­let­ics. He will be re­mem­bered not just for his con­tri­bu­tions on the track but his will­ing­ness to help, to smile and to put the suc­cess of the col­lec­tive first," the re­lease added.

De­on Lendore's ca­reer achieve­ments

2019 - Bronze (4x400m) - Pan Amer­i­can Games, Li­ma, Pe­ru

2018 - Bronze (400m) - World In­door Cham­pi­onships, Birm­ing­ham, Eng­land

2016 - Bronze (400m) - World In­door Cham­pi­onships, Port­land, USA

2016 - Bronze (4x400m) - World In­door Cham­pi­onships, Port­land, USA

2015 - Sil­ver (4x400m) - World Cham­pi­onships, Bei­jing, Chi­na

2012 - Bronze (4x400m) - Olympics, Lon­don, Eng­land

2011 - Gold (4x400m) Carif­ta Games, Mon­tego Bay, Ja­maica; 2 Sil­ver (400m and 4X400m) Pan Amer­i­can Ju­nior Cham­pi­onships in Mi­ra­mar, USA; Sil­ver (4x400m) CAC Cham­pi­onships, Mayaguez, Puer­to Ri­co

2010 - Sil­ver 400m; Bronze 4x400, Carif­ta Games, George Town, Cay­man Is­lands; Bronze 400m and Gold 4x400m CAC Ju­niors in San­to Domin­go, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic

2009 - Sil­ver (4x400m) in Pan Amer­i­can Ju­nior Cham­pi­onships, Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Port-of-Spain

2008 - Bronze (4x400m) Carif­ta Games, Bas­seterre, St Lu­cia