media_artricles :: 2018

T&T’s 3rd Olympic Gold on the horizon

T&T will soon get its third Olympic Gold medal following Hasely Crawford ( 1976) and Kershorn Walcott (2012) triumphs. T&T's men's 4x100 metres team which finished second to Jamaica at the 2008 Beijing

Olympics will receive the gold medal after Jamaica was disqualified after a doping violation and has finally returned the medals earlier this year.

T&T's four-time Olympic medallist Ato Boldon, speaking on i95.5fm Isports programme on Saturday confirmed the latest development in the matter. He said, "As you know, I am an Ambassador with the IAAF, and I can confirm, that Jamaica have handed in their gold medals following the disqualification and all the appeals etc."

Boldon when pressed as to when the medals will be handed over and where he said, "At the moment, I can only say that it is expected to be this year. I cannot say whether it will be three months or six months time, but I am confident based on what has happened since the return of the gold medals, that it will be in 2018."

Boldon was speaking together with three-time Olympic medallist Richard Thompson on the controversy involving the Ministry of Sports Elite funding issues and several related communication between athletes and ministry officials.

He said, "None of this should be a surprise to anyone, it has been going on for a long time in the sports arena, perhaps now it is more obvious because a lot of stuff is in writing, but it appears that the Ministry of Sports has gone from one extreme too lenient to another too severe."

"But now if the team is to get another gold medal our third, it will be interesting how the officials will deal with this having ignored the athletes letters and calls in the past. It would appear strange that they would now want to have photo opportunities with our gold medal winning team, but nevertheless this is something that we have to celebrate, our third gold medal, it is an historic moment and has to be fully appreciated as that, hopefully by then, these matters could be sorted," noted Boldon.

Thompson was of the opinion that, "This is a bridge that we will cross when it reaches, but for the moment I am hopeful that I can have a meeting with the Minister of Sports and his team so that we can sort out some of these points which have been raised, which need to be clarified. I will try to talk with the NAAA and ask them to coordinate a meeting. This is not about Richard Thompson, this is about our athletes knowing where they stand."

Top