The Do­mini­ca Gov­ern­ment has pre­sent­ed the coun­try’s first ever Olympics gold medal­list, Thea La­fond-Gad­son, with the coun­try’s high­est na­tion­al award, The Do­mini­ca Award of Ho­n­our, fol­low­ing her ex­ploits at the re­cent­ly com­plet­ed Paris Olympics.

In ad­di­tion, Prime Min­is­ter Roo­sevelt Sker­rit, ad­dress­ing a pub­lic cer­e­mo­ny at the Wind­sor Park Sta­di­um on Sun­day night, said that she al­so would be pro­vid­ed with a par­cel of land, and would be ap­point­ed as the In­ter­na­tion­al Sports Am­bas­sador pro­vid­ing both her and her hus­band-coach with diplo­mat­ic pass­ports.

“The Gov­ern­ment of Do­mini­ca has de­cid­ed to grant you a cash gift of EC$400,000 (One EC dol­lar = US$0.37 cents), ap­point you as in­ter­na­tion­al sports am­bas­sador, along with a diplo­mat­ic pass­port. The cour­tesy of the diplo­mat­ic pass­port will al­so be ex­tend­ed to your hus­band,” PM Sker­rit said.

“Be­stow up­on you Do­mini­ca’s high­est na­tion­al award, The Do­mini­ca Award of Ho­n­our, dur­ing this year’s In­de­pen­dence cel­e­bra­tions (in No­vem­ber), at which you will be our spe­cial guest of ho­n­our,” he re­vealed.

Thea La­fond-Gad­son, who ar­rived in Do­mini­ca on Sun­day, took part in a grand mo­tor­cade from the north­ern town of Portsmouth to the cap­i­tal, Roseau, where hun­dreds joined to cel­e­brate in her achieve­ment.

“We are aware of your de­sire for a fa­cil­i­ty that pro­vides op­por­tu­ni­ties for track and field ath­letes to de­vel­op their skills, and this re­mains a pri­or­i­ty on our agen­da for sports de­vel­op­ment in Do­mini­ca. The gov­ern­ment of Do­mini­ca has the de­signs and has al­ready iden­ti­fied a lo­ca­tion for the con­struc­tion of a syn­thet­ic track,” PM Sker­rit said.

“I give you and the peo­ple of Do­mini­ca the as­sur­ance to­day that we will pro­ceed with the de­vel­op­ment and con­struc­tion of this fa­cil­i­ty and up­on its com­ple­tion, it will be for­mal­ly named the Thea La­Fond-Gad­son Track & Field Com­plex.”

“Thea, as you re­turn home to the em­brace of your peo­ple, we are proud to call you our own, and we will for­ev­er cher­ish this mo­ment in our his­to­ry. Know that your coun­try stands with you, al­ways. Thank you for be­ing a shin­ing ex­am­ple of Do­mini­can ex­cel­lence. And thank you for re­mind­ing us that with hard work, no dream is too big, no goal is too high, and no ac­com­plish­ment is out of reach,” PM Sker­rit said.

The Do­mini­ca PM added: “As you stood on that podi­um in Paris, with the gold medal around your neck and our na­tion­al an­them play­ing, every Do­mini­can’s heart swelled with pride. And I can at­test per­son­al­ly that there were some tears. I be­lieve that in that mo­ment, you em­bod­ied the very best of us—our de­ter­mi­na­tion, our tenac­i­ty, and our un­wa­ver­ing faith in the pow­er of dreams … and in God.”

La­Fond-Gad­son said she was pleased to have rep­re­sent­ed Do­mini­ca at the Olympics and that pri­or to the games, she had suf­fered a mi­nor in­jury which had now re­quired surgery and hence the rea­son for her walk­ing with crutch­es.

“I have al­ways said it is an ho­n­our and a priv­i­lege to rep­re­sent you and let it be known that see­ing all your faces along the route to­day … has on­ly in­creased my mo­ti­va­tion to do well and good by you,” she told the crowd.

PM Sker­rit said that Do­mini­ca’s three oth­er ath­letes—Den­nick Luke, War­ren Lawrence and Jas­mine Schofield—would re­ceive grants of EC$20,000 each. —ROSEAU, Do­mini­ca (CMC)