For­mer long jumper Che Richards had some ad­vice for ath­letes at the Na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion of Ath­let­ic Ad­min­is­tra­tion (NAAATTs) End of Year Awards cer­e­mo­ny at the Radis­son Ho­tel, Wright­son Road, Port of Spain on Sat­ur­day - “ Com­mit your­selves to faith.”

At 27 years old, Richards, a for­mer St Mary’s Col­lege stu­dent, ex­celled in both sports and aca­d­e­mics and was re­ward­ed with a schol­ar­ship to the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ed­in­burgh, in the UK where he is cur­rent­ly study­ing Law.

In 2013, Richards claimed a bronze medal in the long jump at the Carif­ta Games for boys un­der 17. His con­tin­ued ex­cel­lence, cou­pled with his per­for­mance in open lan­guage in 2015, earned him an open schol­ar­ship, mak­ing him the third such ath­lete to have been of­fered an open schol­ar­ship.

How­ev­er, the tow­er­ing fig­ure of Richards stood be­fore a large, in­tim­i­dat­ing au­di­ence to in­form ath­letes about the im­por­tance of hav­ing faith in one’s ex­is­tence and in their goal.

Feed­ing from the Theme- ‘ Com­mit­ted to ex­cel­lence in ac­tion’ Richards, the event’s fea­ture speak­er said- “ I think ath­letes and in­di­vid­u­als some­times get com­mit­ted to the goal which is a weird state­ment to make be­cause you need to be com­mit­ted to the goal, but you need to be com­mit­ted to the goal, you need to do your ex­tra reps, the ex­tra sets etc, how­ev­er, I be­lieve that we should be com­mit­ted to faith.”

“ Put in the work yes, but al­so be con­sis­tent in your be­lief that when you put in the work, de­spite any ob­sta­cle, you will win. We must train our­selves to have faith in things we can­not see, know­ing that every­thing we do has a pur­pose and it will all fall in­to place.”

At the awards, Jereem Richards and Leah Bertrand were named the top se­nior track ath­letes for 2024, with javelin throw­er Keshorn Wal­cott and shot put­ter Por­tious War­ren tak­ing home the awards for the top se­nior field ath­letes.

Mean­while, Queen’s Roy­al Col­lege stu­dent Ta­fari Wal­dron who smashed the na­tion­al U-20 record in the 5,000 me­ters in a jaw-drop­ping per­for­mance of 14 min­utes and 57.95 sec­onds to oblit­er­ate the 33-year-old na­tion­al record held by Quintin John, was al­so high­light­ed as the coun­try’s top ju­nior ath­lete.

Richards urged ath­letes that their com­mit­ment to faith was more than all the medals and oth­er ac­co­lades they would achieve. “ I be­lieve that to be the foun­da­tion of any suc­cess­ful in­di­vid­ual, and when I say suc­cess­ful I don’t mean ma­te­r­i­al suc­cess. Yes, the medals, the cars, the hous­es, and the spon­sor­ship deals are all im­por­tant, but we must al­ways re­mem­ber that we are in­di­vid­u­als first be­fore we are ath­letes. Be­ing an ath­lete is on­ly a frac­tion of who you are, it is what you are dur­ing train­ing and com­pe­ti­tion, but life hap­pens even out­side of the track, so it is al­so im­por­tant to feed and nur­ture that part of you, men­tal­ly, emo­tion­al­ly, and psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly. And to do so you feed that in­di­vid­ual with faith, kind­ness, hope, love, healthy friend­ship and com­mu­ni­ty,” Richards ex­plained.

Mean­while, Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Sports and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment David Roberts who deputised for Min­is­ter Sham­fa Cud­joe-Lewis as­sured his min­istry’s com­mit­ment to sup­port­ing the growth and de­vel­op­ment of the sport.

“ There can be no doubt that a strong sup­port­ive gov­er­nance struc­ture, pop­u­lat­ed by per­sons whose first in­ter­est is the ath­letes’ growth and de­vel­op­ment will pro­duce the best re­sults. More­over, ath­let­ics is see­ing a resur­gence in the num­ber of par­tic­i­pat­ing clubs, the num­ber of coach­es and tech­ni­cal staff be­com­ing qual­i­fied, and the num­ber of ath­letes be­ing reg­is­tered,” Roberts said.

“ To this end, we have seen some en­cour­ag­ing trends. First­ly, there has been an in­creased par­tic­i­pa­tion by women and girls in var­i­ous events, sig­nalling pos­i­tive progress to­ward greater gen­der bal­ance in sports.”

HO­N­OUR ROLL

Un­der-9 Male- Jah­mir Chris­t­ian (Cougars)

U-9 Fe­male- Kiome Reid (Zenith)

Un­der-11 Male- Azz­iron Williams

U-11 Fe­male- Nao­mi Phillip (Cougars)

Un­der-13 Male- Seth Sylvester (Cougars)

U-13 Fe­male- Glo­ria Hen­ry

U-15 Male (Track)- Jay­den Goodridge

U-15 Fe­male (Track)- (Os­hea Cum­mings

U-15 Male (Field) - Michael Paul

U-15 Fe­male (Field)- Karis­sa Williams

U-17 Male (Track) - Kadeem Chi­napoo

U-17 Fe­male (Track) - Jen­na Marie Thomas

U-17 Male (Field) - Tyrique Vin­cent

U-17 Fe­male (Field)- Pey­ton Win­ter

U-20 Male (Track) - Ta­fari Wal­dron

U-20 Fe­male (Track)- Sole Fred­er­ick

U-20 Male (Field)- Le­Bron James

U-20 Fe­male (Field) - Janae De Gannes

Men Track- Jereem Richards

Fe­male Track- Leah Bertrand

Men Field - Keshorn Wal­cott

Fe­male Field - Por­tious War­ren

Mul­ti Events Male- Do­ri­an Charles

Mul­ti Events Fe­male- Kaori Rob­ley

Road Run­ning Male- Nicholas Ro­many

Road Run­ning Fe­male- Saman­tha Shuk­la

Cross Coun­try Male- Nicholas Ro­many

Cross Coun­try Fe­male- April Fran­cis

Ju­nior Male of the Year- Ta­fari Wal­dron

Ju­nior Fe­male of the Year- Janae De Gannes

Se­nior Male of the Year- Jereem Richards

Se­nior Fe­male of the Year- Leah Bertrand

Ju­ve­nile Club of the Year- RSS Phoenix AC

Ju­nior Club of the Year- RSS Phoenix AC

Se­nior Club of the Year- Abi­lene Wild­cats

Out­stand­ing Per­for­mances:

Jereem Richards, Ta­fari Wal­dron, Do­ri­an Charles, Aaron An­toine, Nathan Cum­ber­batch, Sole Fred­er­ick, Janae De Gannes, Che Wick­ham, Kadeem Chi­napoo, Ha­keem Chi­napoo, Mikhail By­er, Dy­lan Woodruffe, Akeem Stew­art, Keshorn Wal­cott.

Pres­i­dent’s Award- Kadeem Chi­napoo

Long & Mer­i­to­ri­ous Ser­vice:

Al­lan Ba­boolal, Wade Franklyn, Durly Lu­cas, Lu­cre­tia Warn­er Burns, Joyce Thomas