Tau­reef Mo­hammed

Vin­cent Gor­don, fa­ther of T&T's lat­est world cham­pi­on Je­hue Gor­don, did not get a chance to see his son take the 400 me­tres ti­tle on tele­vi­sion be­cause of a black­out of the In­ter­na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion of Ath­let­ics Fed­er­a­tions (IAAF) World Cham­pi­onships in Moscow yes­ter­day.In an in­ter­view with the T&T Guardian at his mod­est home at Mt Co­coa Road, Pa­pi­er Vil­lage, Mar­aval, yes­ter­day, Gor­don said it was a friend who had called him and told him his son had won the race.

As he looked at the race for the first time on a mo­bile phone pro­vid­ed by the vis­it­ing T&T Guardian news team, Gor­don said he felt great."I was ex­pect­ing that," he said, proud­ly hold­ing up a front-page news­pa­per pic­ture of his son."He (Je­hue) is a guy who works very hard in what­ev­er he's do­ing, so that wasn't any big sur­prise to know that he won."I'm still shaky from the news, but I wasn't sur­prised be­cause from small, Je­hue was al­ways de­ter­mined. If he wants some­thing, he go­ing to­wards it–no ifs and buts."Gor­don won gold in the 400 me­tres hur­dles in a per­son­al best time of 47.69 sec­onds.

The se­nior Gor­don said he had told his 21-year-old son be­fore he left for the games,"Go up there and give them hell!"When he was on­ly three-years-old, Gor­don re­called, Je­hue showed ath­let­ic po­ten­tial as the top gym­nast in his class at Mar­aval RC Prepara­to­ry School. He al­so ex­celled in the 400 me­tres and 800 me­tres flats, he added.His favourite "Je­hue" race–which Gor­don ranks above Je­hue's Olympic per­for­mance and even his gold­en race at the IAAF cham­pi­onship–was at the Un­der-13 Zon­al Ath­let­ics Com­pe­ti­tion at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um about nine years ago.

"It was an 800 me­tres, and with 200 me­tres to go, Je­hue was in last place and he just start mov­ing, mov­ing, mov­ing and he be­came the Un­der-13 800 me­tres cham­pi­on."

Gor­don, a fa­ther of two, said he had en­rolled his sons at the Har­vard Crick­et Club, but Je­hue, 13 at the time, told his fa­ther he want­ed to run. A crick­et fa­nat­ic, Gor­don said he had Je­hue play­ing "bat and ball" in his crib, but once Je­hue told him he liked run­ning, he didn't force him. "He got the form for Mem­phis Pi­o­neers, filled it out him­self and I signed it. Af­ter that, his­to­ry," he said.

"At Bel­mont, his sports teacher Mr King told him to try hur­dles be­cause there weren't many peo­ple do­ing hur­dles in T&T at that time. Mr King was very in­flu­en­tial in his life."Je­hue took his teacher's ad­vice and start­ed train­ing in hur­dles with the Mem­phis Pi­o­neers Ath­let­ic Club.Gor­don said: "Some­times he would train in the morn­ing and some­times in the evening. He would do the full works be­cause hur­dles is no easy race. I think you have to put out three times ex­tra than a usu­al race to jump those things."

He said he be­lieved Je­hue's coach­es–Dr Ian Hy­po­lite and Ed­win Skin­ner–were the most in­flu­en­tial in his son's life.Je­hue even­tu­al­ly trans­ferred to Queen's Roy­al Col­lege and won a schol­ar­ship to at­tend the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, where he is pur­su­ing a de­gree in sports man­age­ment.Asked how his son bal­anced be­ing a uni­ver­si­ty stu­dent and a pro­fes­sion­al ath­lete, he said, "By the grace of God!"As he laughed hap­pi­ly, Gor­don added: "It wasn't easy be­cause when he fin­ished UWI he would go to the sta­di­um, or run up La­dy Chan­cel­lor with the Mem­phis Club."

De­scrib­ing Je­hue as cool and qui­et, Gor­don said his son al­so en­joyed play­ing foot­ball on Xbox and eat­ing cur­ry food.As Je­hue moved up on the world stage, Gor­don said he would al­ways re­mind him: "Reach for the stars but keep your feet on the ground, be­cause when you fall, you will fall hard."