Keshorn Wal­cott, de­spite be­ing a two-time Olympic medal­list, still had the de­sire for more and car­ried the hopes of a na­tion yearn­ing for its first medal at the Paris Games in France.

The 31-year-old throw­er, who won the gold in Lon­don 2012, Eng­land, and a bronze in Rio 2016, Brazil, had to set­tle for sev­enth place in the men’s javelin event at the Stade de France yes­ter­day.

Wal­cott was drawn to throw from po­si­tion three of the 12 com­peti­tors. And as in 2012, Wal­cott set the place alight and led af­ter round one with a throw of 86.16 me­tres. But un­like 2012, the lead on­ly last­ed one round, as first Grena­da’s An­der­son Phillip threw the spear at 87.87m, then Pak­istan’s Ar­shad Nadeem, with a hu­mon­gous throw of 92.97m to set a new Olympic record, turned the com­pe­ti­tion on its head.

De­fend­ing Olympic cham­pi­on Neer­aj Chopra of In­dia re­spond­ed with an 89.45 m, and Jakub Vadle­jch with an 88.50 m was third as they en­tered the last eight. 

There was on­ly one change to the front three that start­ed the last round of three throws, as Phillip was able to im­prove his throw to 88.54m to grab the bronze medal. It meant that Pak­istani Nadeem was the new cham­pi­on, with Chopra forced to set­tle for the sil­ver medal.

Wal­cott dropped to sev­enth place af­ter the first three throws and re­mained there to the end as his throws got pro­gres­sive­ly low­er and low­er. It was a brave ef­fort from the To­co-born ath­lete, who had in­curred a se­ri­ous in­jury some eight months ago that re­quired surgery.

“I felt a pain, and I knew it was my ham­string, and af­ter such a good first throw, I just had to use my hands on­ly af­ter, and you can see my scores went down right af­ter that. I did not want to cause any more pain, so I had to even pull out of my last throw,” Wal­cott told Guardian Me­dia Sport.

“I be­lieve it is a tear, but when it gets cold lat­er I will have a bet­ter idea, but I am done for the sea­son and will go home and rest; af­ter all I have been through, I had to come here.” 

Ques­tioned on whether per­haps he re­turned to ac­tion too soon af­ter the se­ri­ous in­jury, Wal­cott re­spond­ed, “I had no choice if I want­ed to be here, so I had to go for it.” 

Be­fore Wal­cott won the ti­tle in 2012, it was con­sid­ered a sole­ly Eu­ro­pean sport. He be­came the first non-Eu­ro­pean to win, and that has led to vic­to­ries and medals for ath­letes from Africa, Grena­da, In­dia, and, on this oc­ca­sion, Pak­istan, whether at Olympic events or World Cham­pi­onships. Wal­cott ad­mit­ted that he has been a pi­o­neer. 

“Yes, that is true. It was to­tal­ly a Eu­ro­pean sport, but now it is not just one per­son win­ning a medal, but like this time, it is all three medals. I re­al­ly want to con­grat­u­late my good friend An­der­son (Pe­ters) for his suc­cess, al­though I wish it was a dif­fer­ent colour, and he de­serves it.”

When asked why no one in T&T has fol­lowed him in the sport, Wal­lace said, “The lev­el of sports in our coun­try is low at the mo­ment, and there is no one in the javelin at the mo­ment. Those that were there have dropped off.”

As to whether he had seen any progress or change in the eight years since he won T&T’s lone medal at the Rio Olympics, Wal­cott, shak­ing his head, said, “No, noth­ing has changed; just look at the num­ber of ath­letes we have here this time around.”

At this year’s Games, T&T is be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by 17 ath­letes.

He con­tin­ued, not delv­ing too deep in­to the prob­lem. “I have to con­cen­trate on me right now; maybe lat­er on, if they ask me, then I can as­sist.” 

For now, Wal­cott says his con­cen­tra­tion is on next year’s World Cham­pi­onships and the Los An­ge­les 2028 Olympics.

“I will take it year by year on that one,” said Wal­cott.