Clifton Bertrand, a for­mer T&T Olympic sprint­er at the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games, passed away this morn­ing his daugh­ter Lisa Bertrand Brath­waite told the me­dia. He was 84.

It is re­port­ed that Bertrand, who was a di­a­bet­ic and wrote a week­ly blog died of nat­ur­al caus­es on Sun­day morn­ing at his home in New York, USA.

He was dubbed a T&T track leg­end and a proud New York Uni­ver­si­ty grad­u­ate.

Bertrand, who was born in Ari­ma in 1936, won a gold medal in 200 me­ters at the 1957 British West In­dies Cham­pi­onships, and three gold medals at the 1958 British West In­dies Cham­pi­onships. He par­tic­i­pat­ed in three events at the 1958 British Em­pire and Com­mon­wealth Games but did not reach the fi­nal in ei­ther.

How­ev­er, at the 1959 Pan Amer­i­can Games, he fin­ished fifth in the 200 me­tres and won a bronze with the British West In­di­an Fed­er­a­tion 4 x 100 me­tres re­lay team. His team­mates were Michael Agos­ti­ni, Wilton Jack­son and Ja­maican Den­nis John­son. Bertrand then com­pet­ed at the 1960 Olympic Games, reach­ing the quar­ter-fi­nals of the 200 me­tres. He al­so ran in the heats of the 4x400 me­tres re­lay for the British West In­di­an Fed­er­a­tion team that would lat­er, in the fi­nal, win a bronze medal.

Bertrand, a mem­ber of the lo­cal ath­let­ic club Abi­lene Wild­cats, left T&T for the Unit­ed States as a teenag­er. He even­tu­al­ly grad­u­at­ed with a B.S. and M.S. from the New York Uni­ver­si­ty, and lat­er as Doc­tor of Ed­u­ca­tion from the Co­lum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty. He fin­ished sixth in the 1962 NCAA cham­pi­onship.

At the 1963 Pan Amer­i­can Games he won two bronze medals; in the 400 me­tres and the 4 x 100 me­tres re­lay with team­mates An­tho­ny Jones, Irv­ing Joseph and Cipri­ani Phillip. He com­pet­ed at the 1964 Olympic Games with­out reach­ing the fi­nal, and fi­nal­ly, at the 1966 Com­mon­wealth Games, he fin­ished eighth in the 4 x 110 yards re­lay with team­mates Hen­ry Noel, Cipri­ani Phillip and Win­ston Short.

In 2008, Bertrand was in­duct­ed in­to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Hall of Fame along with oth­er well re­spect­ed and de­serv­ing T&T ath­letes.

Bertrand mar­ried Phoebe Yuille, an ed­u­ca­tor from T&T, who passed away in 2003. Their daugh­ter Lisa is a lawyer in New York.

Brath­waite told Guardian Me­dia Sports that the fam­i­ly is in the process of mak­ing fu­ner­al arrange­ments and con­sid­er­ing all the re­stric­tions in place due to Covid-19.

Bertrand leaves to mourn Kay Garib, his com­pan­ion, as well as his daugh­ter Lisa Bertrand Brath­waite and son-in-law Frank Brath­waite.