Page 47 - Team TTO PARIS 2024

The tension and anticipation are It is in the mixed zone that T&T’s Hasley Crawford won Gold
thick before the race starts and we get to hear from the in the showpiece Men’s 100
the buzz lasts long after. There’s Metres at the 1976 Olympics in
a brief hush before the starter’s athletes from our small Montreal, leading a Caribbean
pistol. Then, a kinetic explosion. Caribbean islands who have one-two with Donald Quarrie of
punched above the weight Jamaica (Silver), who also Gold
I was fortunate to witness the of our nations - Kirani James in the Men’s 200m.
dual flowering of Usain Bolt and of Grenada. Keshorn Walcott
Shelly-Ann Fraser. She wasn’t of T&T. Shaunae Miller-Uibo Caribbean born athletes have
Mrs Fraser-Price then, but a of the Bahamas. delivered for their adopted
small-in-stature 21-year-old, nations. T&T’s McDonald Bailey a
smiling shyly behind her dental braces. Bronze in the Men’s 100 for Great Britain. Jamaica’s Linford
Christie in 1992 and Donovan Bailey in 1996, for Great
Usain was neither small nor shy. I remember Costello, Britain and Canada respectively.
years before Beijing in a conversation in the BBC Sport
newsroom, speaking in awe of a Jamaican teenaged “man Shelly-Ann Fraser-Price, Shericka Jackson and Elaine
mountain” who was going to be the next big thing in the Thompson-Herah are the latest in a long line of excellent
100 and 200 metres. Bolt lapped up the attention, mugging Jamaican women athletes. Their illustrious predecessors
for the cameras, doing his now famous Lightning Bolt pose included Merlene Ottey, Veronica Campbell-Brown and
after an inevitable victory. Grace Jackson.

Striking gold in the Mixed Zone I went to my first Olympic games, in Athens in 2004, as a
I went to Beijing as a freelance reporter for BBC and other tourist. In the stadium, I found myself sitting next to a
outlets. I got my athlete interviews in the Olympic Village couple of Slovenian guys. They couldn’t stop gushing about
(I needed to arrange entry with the teams’ management Ottey, who became a naturalised Slovenian and represented
beforehand) and in the mixed zone – a kind of gauntlet of that Balkan nation in Athens.
reporters that athletes exiting the tracks must navigate. It
starts with TV rights holders trackside, and ends with the Beyond the Olympic track
print reporters. There’s been Caribbean success beyond track and field.
T&T’s first Olympic medal came in weightlifting – Rodney
Bolt, Fraser-Price are not the only gold medal winners we Wilkes in the Featherweight division in London in 1948.
got to interview in the Mixed Zone. Marc Burns of Trinidad Guyana’s only Olympic medal was won by Michael Anthony
and Tobago was another. I caught up with him after one of Parris in Moscow in 1980, bronze in the Bantamweight
the heats; and years before events were to elevate him and division. Parris won’t care one bit that American athletes
the other three members of the T&T 4x100 relay quartet to were not allowed to compete in Moscow, since the US
gold after the eventual disqualification of Jamaican Nesta boycotted the games because of the Soviet invasion of
Carter from Bolt’s team. Afghanistan in 1979. Soviet athletes were to effect a
revenge boycott of the 1984 games in Los Angeles.
It is in the mixed zone that we get to hear from the athletes
from our small Caribbean islands who have punched What has happened since then is that the number of
above the weight of our nations - Kirani James of Grenada. Olympics sports has grown, and I would like to see
Keshorn Walcott of T&T. Shaunae Miller-Uibo of the Caribbean Olympic Associations try to get our athletes to
Bahamas. compete in more non-traditional sports. There’s good
representation beyond track and field; in boxing, swimming
The mixed zone evolved over time as TV and other forms and cycling, for example. T&T cyclist Nicholas Paul is a
of media coverage expanded, but Caribbean Olympic serious medal prospect.
excellence has been a thing for decades. Jamaica’s Arthur
Wint won gold in the men’s 400m at the 1948 London It’s fashionable to disdain comparatively newly added
Olympics, setting an Olympic record and beating his sports such as BMX Cycling, but we should be exploring
countryman Herb McKenley in the process. Trinidadian every avenue to add to our medal count. We the sports
Wendell Mottley won two medals in Tokyo in 1964, first an journalists should be asking our Olympic team leaders how
indivudual silver and bronze in the 4x400m along with his they go about doing this. Meantime, our chances in Paris
colleagues Edwin Skinner, Kent Bernard and Edwin look good in our traditional areas of competition.
Roberts.

Orin Gordon is T&T based Media Consultant. He has worked in media in the UK for the BBC

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