ROSEAU, Do­mini­ca – Do­mini­ca’s first-ever Olympic gold medal­ist Thea La­Fond-Gad­son on Sun­day of­fi­cial­ly re­ceived her na­tion’s high­est ho­n­our, the Do­mini­ca Ho­n­our Award, for her his­toric achieve­ment at the Paris Olympics.

La­Fond-Gad­son, who claimed gold in the women’s triple jump in Paris and al­so won the triple jump at the World In­door Cham­pi­onships in Glas­gow, Scot­land, re­ceived the award dur­ing the coun­try’s In­de­pen­dence Day Ral­ly at the Na­tion­al Pa­rade, where Prime Min­is­ter Roo­sevelt Sker­ritt ac­knowl­edged her sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions to Do­mini­ca.

Dur­ing the for­mal cer­e­mo­ny, Do­mini­ca’s Pres­i­dent, Her Ex­cel­len­cy Syl­vanie Bur­ton, pre­sent­ed the award to the 30-year-old, one of 18 Do­mini­cans and in­ter­na­tion­al hon­orees rec­og­nized this year for their con­tri­bu­tions.

Speak­ing af­ter­ward, La­Fond-Gad­son ex­pressed her grat­i­tude, de­scrib­ing the award as her “great­est achieve­ment ever” and en­cour­aged young Do­mini­cans to fol­low their dreams with de­ter­mi­na­tion.

The ac­co­lades for La­Fond-Gad­son’s ac­com­plish­ments ex­tend be­yond the na­tion­al cer­e­mo­ny.

A pri­vate sec­tor-host­ed lun­cheon was held in her hon­or last Mon­day, and she was al­so ap­point­ed a Sports Am­bas­sador and award­ed $400,000 along with a land grant from the gov­ern­ment.

CMC