At 5 o’clock this morn­ing, the na­tion­al an­them can be heard on the steel­pan in Birm­ing­ham, Eng­land, if sprint­er Jereem ‘The Dream’ Richards has his way.

The ho­n­our of this re­quest came af­ter he shat­tered the 200 me­tres Com­mon­wealth Games record on his way to a suc­cess­ful de­fence of a ti­tle he won back in 2018. Fol­low­ing the dis­ap­point­ment of the IAAF World Ath­let­ics Cham­pi­onships, in Eu­gene, Ore­gon, Unit­ed States where he placed sixth in the 200-me­tre fi­nal last month, Richards shook off the neg­a­tiv­i­ty of that fin­ish to pro­duce a blis­ter­ing run in the half-lap event fi­nal to cross the fin­ish line in a per­son­al best time of 19.80 sec­onds, with a sur­pris­ing dis­tance from his clos­est ri­val Zhar­nel Hugh­es of Eng­land who had been tipped as the favourite to win the race.

Richards was out of the blocks in a flash and de­liv­ered a con­stant pace on the bend be­fore ac­cel­er­at­ing to unimag­in­able speed ahead of the field in the fi­nal 60 me­tres.  

Af­ter the race, Richards said he had been on a mis­sion through­out the Games and want­ed to de­liv­er on his coach’s in­struc­tion to drop the ham­mer in the fi­nal.

“I’ve been on a mis­sion. I was very con­ser­v­a­tive through­out the rounds and I just want­ed to make a state­ment.

“My coach tell me to drop the ham­mer in the fi­nal and that’s just what I want­ed to do, just drop the ham­mer,” Richards said.

His 19.80 was well ahead of sec­ond-place Hugh­es, who crossed the fin­ish in a time of 20.12, a sea­son’s best time that sealed the sil­ver medal while Ghana­ian Joseph Paul Amoah (20.49) took the bronze and Em­manuel Es­eme of Cameroon the fourth-place fin­ish.

The 28-year-old Point Fortin na­tive has now bro­ken the Com­mon­wealth Games record that was set by Namib­ian Frankie Fred­er­icks in Stuttgart in 1994 in a time of 19.97. Still, how­ev­er, he re­mains in the shad­ows of for­mer sprint­er Ato Boldon whose 19.77 still holds as the na­tion­al 200 me­tres record, that was set back in Stuttgart, Ger­many in 1997.

Richards said while he wants to break that record, it will come in God’s tim­ing.

“Every­body helped me out this year, I had a big sup­port team, my fam­i­ly, my friends, but in terms of the start, I’ve been work­ing on it for a while now and now I have the con­fi­dence and the abil­i­ty to do it.”

“It (Boldon’s record) could be gone this sea­son, I still have a few more meets to go but the main fo­cus is to keep on run­ning fast and stay­ing healthy. I want to get the record but it’s not my main fo­cus, it will come when it’s time to come,” Richards not­ed.

Ac­cord­ing to Richards: “It def­i­nite­ly does make up a lot. To leave here with a per­son­al best, so close to the na­tion­al record once again, I will take it down some­time, God’s tim­ing is the best tim­ing.

“I am just hap­py the two ma­jor meets for the sea­son are done. Men­tal­ly, a big weight has come off my chest—World Cham­pi­onships fin­ish, Com­mon­wealth Games fin­ish, job done both ways and I am hap­py, praise God,” said Richards, who recog­nised his late for­mer team­mate quar­ter­mil­er De­on Lendore.

“I know De­on Lendore is smil­ing right now. I have one re­quest if any­body can hear me, I would love to hear the Na­tion­al An­them in the steel­pan ren­di­tion, I would love to hear that one. If I can get it in the morn­ing in the steel­pan ren­di­tion, that will make my day,” Richards con­clud­ed.

Richards’ gold medal will add to the gold, sil­ver and bronze medals won by cy­clist Nicholas Paul in the keirin, match-sprint and kilo­me­tre time tri­al re­cent­ly. 

4x100m re­lay men, women in­to fi­nal

T&T’s 4x100 me­tres men’s and women’s re­lay teams earned places in the fi­nal on the penul­ti­mate day.

The men’s quar­tet of Jerod El­cock, Er­ic Har­ri­son Jr, Kion Ben­jamin and Akani His­lop, run­ning in that or­der, pro­duced a sea­son’s best time of 38.84 sec­onds for au­to­mat­ic qual­i­fi­ca­tion in sec­ond po­si­tion, but the women’s team squeezed in as one of the two fastest non-au­to­mat­ic qual­i­fiers af­ter fin­ish­ing fourth in heat two in 43.48 sec­onds.

That team was led by Michelle-Lee Ahye, the de­throned Com­mon­wealth Games 100m cham­pi­on who failed to make it to the fi­nal on Wednes­day af­ter­noon, along with Khal­i­fa St Fort, Mauri­cia Pri­eto and Ak­i­lah Lewis.

The men, con­test­ing heat one of the pre­lim­i­nar­ies, were led-off by El­cock, whose sixth-place fin­ish in the men’s 100 me­tres, pre­vent­ed him from se­cur­ing a semi­fi­nal berth at the World Cham­pi­onships in Ore­gon, and con­clud­ed by His­lop, the To­bag­on­ian who had his first taste of Olympic Games ac­tion when he was cho­sen for the T&T’s 4x100m re­lay team in Tokyo, Japan.

Af­ter a well-ex­e­cut­ed race in lane five, how­ev­er, the T&T team crossed the line be­hind Eng­land’s four­some of Jona Efoloko, Har­ry Aikines-Ary­eetey, Netha­neel Mitchell-Blake and Ojie Edobu­run, seal­ing the win and a pas­sage through to the fi­nal in a sea­son’s best time of 38.48 sec­onds.

They led a list of four qual­i­fiers from the race, along­side third-place Guyana in 39.82, which was a sea­son’s best for the quar­tet of Akeem Stew­art, Em­manuel Archibald, Ar­inze Chance and Nielex Hold­er; and fourth-place Sin­ga­pore (Marc Bri­an Louis, Joshua Han­wei Chua, Xan­der Ann Heng Ho, Ian Koe) cross­ing the fin­ish line in 39.95 sec­onds and tak­ing one of two fastest qual­i­fy­ing spots.

The T&T men will run out of lane five in to­day’s fi­nal at 7.40 am (T&T time) in a field that in­cludes St Lu­cia, Sin­ga­pore, Eng­land, Nige­ria, Kenya, Guyana and Gam­bia.

In the women’s medal race, T&T al­so shone bright­ly in a heat that saw five of the six com­pet­ing teams qual­i­fy­ing for the fi­nal to­day at 7.54 am. Led off by St Fort in lane four, the T&T team pro­duced a sea­son’s best 43.48 to se­cure qual­i­fi­ca­tion, but they had to set­tle be­hind the even­tu­al win­ner Nige­ria (Joy Chi­nenye Udo Gabriel, Favour Ofili, Rose­mary Chuk­wu­ma and Nzubechi Grace Nwokocha) in 42.57, sec­ond-place Eng­land (Asha Philip, Imani Lan­siquot, Bian­ca Williams, Ash­leigh Nel­son) in a sea­son’s best 42.72 and third, Aus­tralia (Mia Gross, Bree Mas­ters, Jac­in­ta Beechi­er, Naa Anang) in 43.47.

The Ghana­ian quar­tet of Mary Boakye, Lat­i­fa Ali, Gifty Kwakye­waa Oku and Ha­lu­tie Hor was the oth­er qual­i­fi­er from the race af­ter they crossed the fin­ish line in 44.32.

The T&T women will be in lane two for to­day’s fi­nale, which will al­so con­sist of Ghana, Nige­ria, Eng­land, re­gion­al ri­val Ja­maica, In­dia, Aus­tralia and Scot­land.

Al­so in ac­tion to­day, the fi­nal day of ac­tion in the Birm­ing­ham 2022, will be two-time Olympic medal­list Keshorn Wal­cott in the men’s javelin event from 2.40 pm while ear­li­er Tyra Git­tens will chase a spot on the podi­um in the women’s long jump fi­nal from 2.05 pm.

Wal­cott will face off against a tough field which in­clude World cham­pi­on An­der­son Pe­ters of Grena­da, In­dia pair DP Manu and Ro­hit Ya­dav, Kenyans Alex Kipro­tich and Julius Yego, Ar­shad Nadeem of Pak­istan, Sumed­ha Ranas­inghe (Sri Lan­ka), Chinecherem Nnam­di (Nige­ria), Cameron McEn­tyre (Aus­tralia), Joe Har­ris (Isle of Man), Don­ny Tu­ima­seve (Samoa) and Lakona Gere­ga (Papua New Guinea).

Git­tens will take on for­mer Texas A&M team­mate Deb­o­rah Ac­quah of Ghana, Caribbean neigh­bour Ack­e­lia Smith of Ja­maica, Sri Lankan Lak­shi­ni San­daradu­ra, Eng­lish­women Jas­mine Sawyers, Lor­raine Ugen and Abi­gail Irozu­ru, Aus­tralian duo Saman­tha Dale and Brooke Buschkuehl, Cy­press’ Fil­ip­pa Fo­topoulou, Niger­ian pair Ruth Usoro and Ese Brume and Christa­bel Nettey (Cana­da).