Minister of Sport and Community Development Shamfa Cudjoe and TT Olympic Committee (TTOC) president Brian Lewis say they will continue to rally around TT’s athlete delegation as they remain in the hunt for medals at the Tokyo Games.
With just five events to go – men’s sprint and keirin cycling, men’s 4x400m relays and men and women’s 4x100m relays – for TT, the minister and local Olympic head believe the remaining athletes can still produce a medal performance at the Games, which concludes on Sunday.
Walcott makes shock early exit
On Tuesday night, two-time Olympic medallist Keshorn Walcott made a shock exit as he was unable to finish among the top 12 throwers of the men’s javelin qualifying round.
Walcott, the 2012 London Olympics champ and 2016 Rio de Janiero Games bronze medallist, threw distances of 76.13 metres, 79.13m and 79.33m.
Athlete who throw 83.50m and over in the qualifiers automatically advance to the final.
Three of the 16 men in Walcott’s group (B) automatically qualified. Pakistan’s Arshad Nadeem had the furthest throw of 85.16m, followed by Czech Republic’s Jakub Vadlejch with a season’s best of 84.93m and Germany’s Julian Weber with 84.41m.
Walcott finished seventh in the group.
There were also 16 athletes in the group A qualifiers, three of whom hit the automatic qualifying mark.
Walcott’s distance was the 16th best, overall.
The Toco-born athlete produced some exciting performances leading up to Tokyo including bronze (82.81m) in July at the Wanda Diamond League in London, silver (82.84m) at the Paavo Nurmi Games in Finland in June, silver (85.16) at the Spitzen Leichtathletik Luzern in Switzerland in June and silver with a big 89.12m throw at the Kuortane Games Athletics Meet in Finland in June.
The iconic javelin thrower could not replicate his pre-Olympic form in Tokyo.
Richards 8th in 200m final
On Wednesday, 2017 200m World Championship bronze medallist Jereem Richards, placed eighth (20.39s) in the men’s 200m final at the Olympic Stadium. Richards was the fourth TT Olympian to ever make it to the Olympic 200m final.
Richards took to Twitter to share his feelings on the result.
“Came eighth in the Olympic (200m) final…Kids, lane two is tough but I had fun though.”
One hour later, the Point Fortin resident was back tweeting, “Btw (by the way) SIL (South Is Love)”
On his Instagram page, the 27-year old sprinter reminisced about his journey and some of the challenges faced.
He also said he was looking to Friday’s opening round of men’s 4x400m relays, which gets under way from 7.25am.
“From running in the road and struggling to find somewhere to train all 2020 to making an Olympic finals and finish eighth fastest in the world in 2021. Ain’t God Great!!! Next up 4x4 relay.”
Cudjoe, Lewis: More to Olympics than medals
In telephone interviews with Newsday, Cudjoe and Lewis called on citizens to continue rooting for the nation as they go up against the world’s best athletes on the biggest competitive stage.
The sports minister said, “All our athletes o
