Rachael Thom­spon-King

Re­car­do Prescott, 17, and Joan­na Rogers, 15, were named the se­nior boys' and girls' Ath­letes of the Year, re­spec­tive­ly at Cougars Track and Field Club an­nu­al awards and din­ner on Wednes­day at the Tran­quil­li­ty Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School, Port-of-Spain.

Prescott had to fight hard to over­come the chal­lenges of Jaden St Louis and Ash­ton Gill. Prescott, who rep­re­sent­ed T&T at the Carif­ta Games in Grena­da, was the lead-off man in the bronze medal win­ning team in the 4 x400 me­tres re­lay. St Louis was the an­chor leg in that event.

"This award is very im­por­tant to me, know­ing that I worked hard through­out the year. Achiev­ing this is a big thing for me. My goals and hav­ing my coach there keeps me mo­ti­vat­ed. Know­ing that he is there, dri­ving me to­wards my goals that is what mo­ti­vates me, along with my par­ents and of course Almighty God," said Prescott said, a stu­dent of St James Sec­ondary School.

Prescott said de­spite his ef­forts on the in­ter­na­tion­al stage in don­ning the na­tion­al colours, foot­ball re­mains the main sport of choice at his school as his na­tion­al pop­u­lar­i­ty was turn­ing heads and he has been get­ting many friends.

He said, "I'm al­so on tele­vi­sion; al­ways in the news­pa­pers. And it's like, 'he is a big run­ner, let's lime with him.' I am like in a lead­er­ship po­si­tion at school, en­cour­ag­ing peo­ple to be the best at their game, so they could en­cour­age oth­ers."

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions about run­ning out of shelf space at home for his awards, Prescott replied jok­ing­ly that space for his tro­phies was not an im­me­di­ate con­cern, but when that time came, "My moth­er would build more shelves."

St Louis was edged out for top ho­n­our when Prescott, who al­so runs 400m, 800m and 1,500m events, fin­ished sec­ond in the Un­der-18 Boys event in the Na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion for Ath­let­ic Ad­min­is­tra­tions (NAAA) Cross Coun­try Cham­pi­onships at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, ear­li­er this month.

The girls' cham­pi­on Rogers, who com­petes in the 200m, 400m, 800m and 1,500m events al­so won the Na­tion­al Sec­ondary School 4K and the NAAA Cross Coun­try 4K, she rep­re­sent­ed T&T at the Carif­ta Games where she fin­ished fifth in the U-18 Girls 800m. Rogers is un­beat­en at the 800m in T&T and won the women's 800m at the Fal­con In­vi­ta­tion­al Games.

Rogers said, "It's a good ac­com­plish­ment but still, I know I have more work to do. I made it to the Carif­ta team this year and I hope to do the same next year and al­so make the re­lay team. My ex­pe­ri­ence in Grena­da was a good one and I know what is ex­pect­ed and I am work­ing to­wards ac­com­plish­ing my goal. I have learnt that work­ing hard and not giv­ing up helps you out a lot, and when you have a coach dri­ving you as my coach does, you will achieve ex­cel­lence" she said.

"At a young age, I looked up to many of our top ath­letes and those in­ter­na­tion­al stars. Now, want to make it to the Olympics but not just be an Olympian. I want to medal. I hope the hard work will pay off."

They weren't the on­ly top medal­lists tak­ing the spot­light on the night's ritzy af­fair. The Club is so ripe with tal­ent, the ex­ec­u­tive of the pre­mier de­vel­op­men­tal out­fit was forced to in­tro­duce two new awards ju­nior boys' and girls' Ath­lete of the Year.

Thir­teen-year-old hur­dler Bri­an Mor­ris, who al­so a 200m and 400m ath­lete cap­tured the ju­nior boys' award for his per­for­mance dur­ing the sea­son hav­ing post­ed two na­tion­al awards in the U-14 hur­dle events while bring­ing back the 4x400 me­tres re­lay gold at the Bar­ba­dos re­lay Fair in Feb­ru­ary.

Sprint­er Shani­qua Bas­combe was the proud re­cip­i­ent of the girls' tro­phy. She raced un­beat­en in the sprint­ing are­na and went up in the U-16 girls' 100m fi­nal at the Ju­nior Cham­pi­onships and fin­ished third.

Ac­cord­ing to her coach Kelvin Nan­coo, she is an Olympian in the mak­ing.

Olympian Mar­cus Dun­can was the fea­ture speak­er at the awards and cap­ti­vat­ed the au­di­ence with his pre­sen­ta­tion.

"Nev­er give up, when you thing that things are not go­ing your way or the train­ing is too tough, Don't give up. The dif­fer­ence be­tween the top ath­letes and the av­er­age ath­lete is the abil­i­ty to per­se­vere and re­main fo­cus on the task ahead," Dun­can said.

He shared on how he was told by doc­tors that he would nev­er run again in 2010 when he was in­jured but he nev­er gave up and to­day he can say proud­ly I am run­ning and run­ning well.

"I just came back from the Olympics in Rio. Isn't that good for a man who was told he will not run again?" asked Dun­can. "I know many of you and I watch you train and I know your coach per­son­al­ly and he does not play. He re­al­ly wants the best for you but you all have done well and your ac­com­plish­ment over the past year have been ex­em­plary.

"I don't ever re­mem­ber an eight year club that have ever won the Na­tion­al Ju­nior Cham­pi­onship on six oc­ca­sions in eight years. I com­pli­ment you all for your out­stand­ing achieve­ment. Well done, Cougars."