T&T IAAF World Championships 2017 Review
By Christopher Olliverre
Expectations
were lukewarm for this Trinidad and Tobago team for the 2017 I.A.A.F. World
Championships. There was optimism that Keshorn Walcott in Javelin, Jereem
Richards in the 200 metres, the men 4x400 relay team would be on the podium.
Walcott
had a solid season, not great. He threw nowhere near his career best of 90.16
metres but he still had a very solid season best throw of 86.61 metres. He had
to throw close to 90 metres to even compete with the 2 germans Thomas Rohler,
the Olympic Champion and Johannes Vetter but he could only manage a 7th
place in the final, where he was hampered by a hip injury. So considering he
was not fully fit and it was the first time he qualified for a World
Championships Final, it was a solid performance.
Jereem
Richards had a season best of 19.97 seconds, which made him the second fastest
over 200 metres for Trinidad and Tobago. He didn’t have the race that he wanted
but to capture bronze in his first individual senior global final was really
impressive.
I saved
the best for last. Let me say that going into these championships I was hopeful
of a medal. I was optimistic that they could get Bronze, behind Jamaica and
USA. When Jamaica failed to qualify I was hopeful of Silver now. Fred Kerley,
the USA anchor leg runner had a season best of 43.70 seconds, which made him
the 7th fastest all time. When you compare that with T&T anchor
leg runner, Lalonde Gordon season best of 45.01 seconds, USA has to be the
overwhelming favorite. Team T&T refused to follow the status quo and bow
down to USA and created one of the biggest upsets when Lalonde Gordon ran the
race of his life to capture GOLD and inflict on USA their first defeat in 6
World Championships.
Trinidad
and Tobago are proud of this historic achievement by these young brave men, who
besides the obstacles overcame and won. A lesson we call can follow. I just
hope now that the powers that be inject much needed funding into athletics.
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