CAS­TRIES – Dou­ble Olympic medal­list Julien Al­fred land­ed at the Hewanor­ra In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port in St Lu­cia on Tues­day (Sep­tem­ber 24) to much fan­fare, sig­nal­ing the first of four days of cel­e­bra­tion in ho­n­our of the is­land’s sprint queen.

Her ar­rival marked the first time the 23-year-old Al­fred, the coun­try’s first Olympic medal­ist, had re­turned home since her his­toric feat of grab­bing gold in the women’s 100 me­tres and sil­ver in the 200 me­tres at last month’s Paris Olympics.

She was greet­ed at the air­port by Prime Min­is­ter Philip J. Pierre and oth­er high-rank­ing of­fi­cials.

In her speech, an emo­tion­al Al­fred said she had al­ways dreamt of be­ing able to in­spire young, St Lu­cia ath­letes.

“I don’t want to get emo­tion­al, but to­day I re­al­ly want to give thanks,” Al­fred said to rap­tur­ous ap­plause.

“So many peo­ple have guid­ed me and helped me to get to this point and I re­al­ly just want to say thank you to all of you, even those I haven’t men­tioned. I just want to say thank you.

“I have dreamt of this day for such a long time – just be­ing an in­spi­ra­tion to the youth of Saint Lu­cia, want­i­ng to give back and want­i­ng to in­spire them so we can have many more Lev­ern Spencers and many more Daren Sam­mys and many more like my­self,” she added.

Al­fred, who al­so won gold in the 100 me­tres at the re­cent­ly con­clud­ed Di­a­mond League Fi­nal, re­vealed that the road to suc­cess had not come easy.

“It was tru­ly a rocky road. Many days I want­ed to just give up, throw in the tow­el and just say, ‘I’m done’. But my vil­lage, those per­sons who were around me, I just want to say thank you for just every­thing you have done for me. I re­al­ly ap­pre­ci­ate it,” Al­fred said.

The Prime Min­is­ter told the brief cer­e­mo­ny that it was a day for cel­e­bra­tion and re­flec­tion and urged Saint Lu­cians to sup­port the events planned to cel­e­brate Al­fred’s achieve­ments.

“Julien’s re­cent achieve­ments at the Olympic Games tran­scend sports. They have been a source of in­spi­ra­tion to all Saint Lu­cians, es­pe­cial­ly our youth,” Pierre said.

Sports Min­is­ter Ken­son Casimir al­so laud­ed Al­fred for her his­toric achieve­ments.

“We are blessed be­cause we have the per­fect rep­re­sen­ta­tive of a Saint Lu­cian tak­ing us to that lev­el.

“Some­body who is kind, some­body who loves peo­ple, some­body who is gen­er­ous and hum­ble. That per­son is Julien Al­fred,” Casimir said.

The cel­e­bra­tions con­tin­ue on Sep­tem­ber 25, where ral­lies will be held for stu­dents at the Soufriere Mi­ni Sta­di­um in the morn­ing and the La Re­source play­ing field in the af­ter­noon. (CMC)

The next day Al­fred will vis­it her al­ma mater, Ci­ceron Pri­ma­ry School for the un­veil­ing of an icon­ic mur­al.

The na­tion­al cel­e­bra­tion will cul­mi­nate on Sep­tem­ber 27, with a cel­e­bra­to­ry con­cert at the Daren Sam­my Crick­et Ground, where her ac­com­plish­ments will be for­mal­ly ho­n­oured. (CMC)