Clay­ton Clarke

Na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion of Ath­let­ic Ad­min­is­tra­tion (NAAA) pres­i­dent Ephraim Ser­rette is hop­ing the lo­cal track and field fra­ter­ni­ty can build on the suc­cess of 2012. Speak­ing at the NAAA Awards Cer­e­mo­ny at Cap­i­tal Plaza Ho­tel last Sat­ur­day, Ser­rette praised the as­so­ci­a­tion's field events pro­gramme for the suc­cess of Keshorn Wal­cott, who stunned the world with his gold medal per­for­mance at the Olympic Games last Au­gust.

"We have seen the fruits com­ing out of our na­tion­al field pro­gramme. Keshorn came out of that pro­gramme and had a great year (win­ning) from Carif­ta (CAC Ju­niors, World Ju­niors) and the Olympics. With re­gards to the field pro­gramme in To­co, we used to have the coach (Ish­mael Lopez Mas­trapha) go up to To­co twice a week, Tues­day and Thurs­day. We are hop­ing to re-in­tro­duce that. We have short­list­ed ath­letes for this year's Carif­ta Games (in Ba­hamas) and we have in­vit­ed them to join the pro­gramme."

Ser­rette said the NAAA's func­tion was the first oc­ca­sion that his as­so­ci­a­tion had to pay trib­ute Wal­cott since his Olympic tri­umph. "Yes (this is the first func­tion the NAAA has had to ho­n­our Wal­cott). We were not in con­trol. It was tak­en over. We thought we will wait un­til our awards."

The for­mer na­tion­al sprint­er dis­pelled talks that there was a fall-out with Wal­cott and the as­so­ci­a­tion. "I am not aware of any. We had an is­sue. Be­fore Lon­don, we had com­pe­ti­tion javelins that are not used for train­ing. We felt at that time he may have been giv­en some as­sis­tance be­fore he got his own equip­ment. I don't think that was any­thing and I didn't make any­thing of it. We don't have any prob­lems as I know."

Ser­rette re­vealed that some of the goals for 2013 in­clud­ed con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form, the stag­ing of the Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean Se­nior Track and Field Cham­pi­onships. We plan to change the struc­ture of the NAAA through con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form. We are in the process of do­ing up the terms of ref­er­ences to have a le­gal con­sul­tant on board to ef­fect that. With re­gards to Carif­ta and the CAC Se­niors we have a meet­ing with Sports Com­pa­ny. All those dis­cus­sions are still to take place and some of those is­sues will come up."

Ser­rette said re­cent­ly ap­point­ed pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer Cleopa­tra Borel is to meet with him on her role with the as­so­ci­a­tion.

T&T record­ed its best ever per­for­mance at the Au­gust Olympics, win­ning one gold and three sil­ver medals to im­prove on the one sil­ver and two bronze earned at the 1964 Rome, Olympics. Track and field ath­letes were re­spon­si­ble for all the medals won in Lon­don with 19 year old Keshorn Wal­cott lead­ing the way with a gold in the men's javelin as he be­came the sec­ond lo­cal to strike Olympic gold fol­low­ing in the foot­steps of Hase­ly Craw­ford who cap­tured the men's 100m ti­tle at the 1976 Mon­tre­al, Cana­da Olympics.

Lalonde Gor­don (bronze–men's 400m) and the men's 4x100(bronze) and men's 4x400 (bronze) al­so won medals. Kel­ly-Ann Bap­tit­ste and Se­moy Hack­ett etched their names in the his­to­ry books as they were this coun­try's first fe­male fi­nal­ists with Bap­tiste fin­ish­ing sixth in the women's 100m fi­nals and Hack­ett eighth in the 200m event.