Clay­ton Clarke

Dou­ble Olympic bronze medal­list Lalonde Gor­don de­scribed his per­for­mance at the Lon­don Games as a life-long wish come through. Up­on his re­turn home since his his­toric show­ing at the 30th Olympiad, Gor­don shared that he was hap­py with his achieve­ments. "I felt good. This is what I want­ed all my life (to win a medal at the Olympics). I know I made my coun­try proud. I am try­ing to stay hum­ble." The 23-year-old col­lect­ed T&T's first medal in Lon­don when he fin­ished third in the men's 400 me­tres fi­nal in a per­son­al best (pb)of 44.52 sec­onds. The To­ba­go-born quar­ter­mil­er stat­ed ahead of the fi­nals on Au­gust 6 that he was tired af­ter his mas­sive pb of 44.58 in the semi­fi­nals the pre­vi­ous day. "My body nev­er went so far so I was in a kind of shock. I felt a lit­tle tired in the fi­nals but I had to pull it through. I wished we had a day rest like the 400m hur­dles fi­nal­ists. If I had, I could have run faster. I am just hap­py with the time and what I achieved in the end," said Gor­don. The New York-based ath­lete is in his third year of his ca­reer since tak­ing back up the sport in 2009.

He said, "I was run­ning since I was small but I stopped for about six years. I start­ed back in 2009 run­ning for my col­lege in Itha­ca, New York. I start­ed do­ing the 400m in 2010 and nev­er liked it but I just gave it a shot and every week I start­ed to get bet­ter and bet­ter." Gor­don re­turned with his moth­er Cyn­thia Cu­pid who was in Lon­don to wit­ness her son's ac­com­plish­ments. Sports Min­is­ter Anil Roberts, T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC) sec­re­tary gen­er­al Bri­an Lewis, Na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion of Ath­let­ic Ad­min­is­tra­tion (NAAA) pres­i­dent Ephraime Ser­rette and Sec­re­tary Al­lan Ba­boolal were among those who were on hand to wel­come home Gor­don. Roberts praised Gor­don for his "un­selfish de­ci­sion" to lead off the team. "He for­got about him­self and de­serves a round of ap­plause," said the sport min­is­ter. He went on to chal­lenge Gor­don to break Ian Mor­ris' na­tion­al mark of 44.21, "The jour­ney now start. Your time of 44.52 is good but 44.21 is around too long. By next year around June we will break that record." Roberts al­so added that Gor­don should be aim­ing at beat­ing Olympic and World cham­pi­on Grena­di­an Ki­rani James.

Ser­rette said he could not de­scribe the per­for­mances of Gor­don and the na­tion­al con­tin­gent. "Words are be­yond me based on our per­for­mances. Pri­or to the Games I men­tioned that we had a very com­pet­i­tive team. We qual­i­fied for 12 fi­nals, ten in track and field, and I think that au­gurs well for sport in T&T. I am very proud to be at the helm of the as­so­ci­a­tion at this time." Serette added that his as­so­ci­a­tion will be aim­ing at the next four years to pre­pare ath­letes for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. "We are work­ing to­wards the next qua­dren­ni­al to­geth­er with all the key stake­hold­ers no mat­ter to what has hap­pened pri­or to all of this. We need now to work to­geth­er to see how we can turn the bronze to sil­ver and gold medals and the oth­er fi­nals to podi­um po­si­tions. "We in the NAAA look for­ward to work­ing with the TTOC and the Min­istry of Sports and cor­po­rate T&T to as­sist our sports­men and women to de­liv­er and bring­ing glo­ry to the coun­try."