Sean Nero

Three-time Olympic medal­list Richard Thomp­son says the op­por­tu­ni­ty to part­ner with sports drink man­u­fac­tur­er Gatorade to host yes­ter­day's in­au­gur­al sprint­ing camp in his name was a huge boast for his ca­reer.Some 100 emerg­ing ath­letes from ma­jor clubs and schools across the coun­try turned out for the Gatorade Richard Thomp­son Sprint­ing Camp held at the out­field at the Hasley Craw­ford Sta­di­um in Mu­cu­rapo, Port-of-Spain.

In a T&T Guardian in­ter­view the cham­pi­on ath­lete cit­ed the hunger he de­vel­oped for new in­for­ma­tion about his sport just over two years ago, which guid­ed him along the path to con­cep­tu­alise and ex­e­cute this clin­ic. In his view, it was part of his nat­ur­al pro­gres­sion.

"I know where my head was a cou­ple years ago, how much knowl­edge I want­ed; how hun­gry I was for knowl­edge; how hun­gry I was to get bet­ter; and I know these kids are no dif­fer­ent from me. I know there are a lot of peo­ple who see peo­ple like (Usian) Bolt and Mau­rice Greene and LaShawn Mer­ritt and some of the top names and feel they want to be like them.

This is my way of as­sist­ing them to achieve that dream and to achieve that goal, but hav­ing these camps and giv­ing them in­sight in­to things that could al­low them to be bet­ter on a dai­ly ba­sis, that could al­low them to be bet­ter in com­pe­ti­tion.

"And, who knows what this would lead to? If it's as sim­ple as them qual­i­fy­ing for Carif­ta Games and the re­gion­al meets; or go­ing to a (for­eign) uni­ver­si­ty and do­ing bet­ter. It may mean be­com­ing pro­fes­sion­als from sec­ondary school, but which ever way we could as­sist and try to get peo­ple bet­ter, it's im­por­tant to us. I'm ex­treme­ly glad to as­so­ci­at­ed with some­thing like that," he said.

"I think it's very im­por­tant that we fo­cus on the young tal­ent in T&T. Ke­ston Bled­man and I have to have peo­ple con­tin­ue to fly the flag when we de­cide that we are go­ing to hang up our spikes. This is just part of the process-mold­ing the young ones, giv­ing in­sight in­to some of the things they may not be privy too or have any knowl­edge at all about-in­clud­ing things like strength­en and con­di­tion­ing."

Gre­go­ry Seale from Move­ment Me­chan­ics en­light­ened emerg­ing ath­letes on the two pre­vi­ous ar­eas of train­ing as well as nu­tri­tion dur­ing yes­ter­day's ses­sion.Thomp­son lament­ed that be­cause prop­er nu­tri­tion usu­al­ly had no place in pro­grammes de­signed by young ath­letes and their par­ents, but de­clared if they did not eat right to fu­el their bod­ies the right way then the hard work they put in was null and void.

Shane Coop­er, mean­while, an ath­lete de­vel­op­ment and sports per­for­mance spe­cial­ist from Al­tis Per­for­mance Evo­lu­tion brought his ex­pe­ri­ence as an as­sis­tant sprint coach from a US-based ed­u­ca­tion­al fa­cil­i­ty to bear.Thomp­son said es­tab­lish­ing him­self as a brand syn­ony­mous with ed­u­cat­ing and nur­tur­ing in sport was cru­cial for him.

"It is some­thing I've al­ways want­ed to do-to help kids out-be­cause again every time I talk some­where, every time I give a mo­ti­va­tion speech, I talk about the im­pact that Ato Boldon had on me in pri­ma­ry school, com­ing in­to New­town Boy's...just his pres­ence! This guy went to the same school as me, he is from the same coun­try as me and here he is an Olympic medal­list. Why can't I do it too?

"This camp was to give kids hope, by me not on­ly shar­ing sto­ries with them and mo­ti­vat­ing them, but al­low­ing them to in­ter­act with me go­ing through the ex­er­cis­es and drills and ac­cel­er­a­tions; the stuff that I do as a pro­fes­sion­al," Thomp­son said.