An­dre Bap­tise

Olympic cham­pi­on Keshorn Wal­cott who won T&T's on­ly medal at the Rio Olympics which end­ed yes­ter­day, has blast­ed the lack of team spir­it and uni­ty with­in the T&T camp dur­ing the Games.

"We did not do so well as a team this year be­cause hon­est­ly, for my part, we were not a team. We did not come to­geth­er as a unit as in 2012. I was young in 2012 and I was one of the younger ones and I saw the gelling of the team, but here it was not like that. I would not say it was the ath­letes, I would have to say it was the heads. You need to be able to un­der­stand that for a team to be able to per­form prop­er­ly you need to bring them to­geth­er."

Wal­cott, who stunned the world in Lon­don in 2012 at the age of 19 when he be­came the sec­ond Trinida­di­an to win an Olympic gold medal, said the over­all en­vi­ron­ment was bad for every­one.

"It is the en­vi­ron­ment. When you as a team do not feel every­body is to­geth­er (it) is like every­body is just con­cen­trat­ing on their own," he added.

Asked about the pre-Olympic camp or­gan­ised by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Olympic Com­mit­tee, which was de­signed to bring the team to­geth­er, Wal­cott brazen­ly dis­missed that, "Let's move on," he said.

Wal­cott said that peo­ple need­ed to be aware of how tough com­pe­ti­tion is at the Olympics. "These are the best ath­letes in the world and peo­ple need to un­der­stand that."

Wal­cott was high in praise for his coach Cuban Ish­mael Lopez-Mas­tra­pa.

"I have so much to be thank­ful for my coach es­pe­cial­ly and all my team be­cause my coach has brought me here to­day. He has worked with me so much I thank him. This is be­cause of him," said Wal­cott.

The To­co-born Wal­cott said he was again very proud of his achieve­ment.

"I am glad that we have a medal for Trinidad and To­ba­go and hope for sup­port go­ing for­ward. It is not easy com­pet­ing against the best, so I just to thank God for that and all he has done and con­tin­ues to do for me," said a proud Wal­cott.

"I am just hap­py to get a medal. I want­ed gold but to be in the top three was good enough. It has been a tough sea­son; not the build-up I would have want­ed lead­ing up to these Games but I just kept on try­ing my best," said Wal­cott.

"I want­ed to win four gold medals by 2024, but now I will have to set­tle for three and that is my goal–to keep im­prov­ing and to not be con­cerned by oth­er mat­ters."