T&T end­ed the Tokyo Olympic Games in Japan with­out a medal.

It is the first time since the Barcelona Games in Spain in 1992 that this coun­try had no ath­letes tak­ing the podi­um. It was the same sit­u­a­tion in 1980 (Moscow, Rus­sia), 1984 (Los An­ge­les, USA) and 1988 (Seoul, South Ko­rea) edi­tions, T&T did not ap­pear on the medal ta­ble.

It wasn't un­til the 1996 At­lanta Games (USA), did T&T have medal suc­cess thanks to Ato Boldon, com­pet­ing at his sec­ond Olympic Games. The sprint­er won two medals, bronze in the men's 100 and 200 me­tres sprints. T&T got three medals at the 1964 Tokyo Games but went with­out a medal in 1968 (Mex­i­co City) and 1972 (Mu­nich, Ger­many) be­fore Hase­ly Craw­ford strike gold in Mon­tre­al, Cana­da in 1976 in the 100 me­tres event.

The pre­mier sport­ing event closed on Sun­day and though debu­tant Olympic long-jumper And­wuelle Wright had the ho­n­our of car­ry­ing the T&T flag at the clos­ing cer­e­mo­ny it was still a som­bre mo­ment for this coun­try and its ath­letes.

Cy­clists Nicholas Paul, the World record-hold­er in the Fly­ing Start, and Kwe­si Browne were T&T's last hope for a medal but that dream end­ed when both ath­letes ex­it­ed in the semi­fi­nals of the men's keirin event at the Izu Velo­drome on Sat­ur­day night (T&T time).

Browne was up first and missed out on a berth in the cham­pi­onship race af­ter fin­ish­ing fifth in the first semi­fi­nal, which was won by even­tu­al gold medal­list Great Britain's Ja­son Ken­ny, who de­fend­ed his ti­tle on Sat­ur­day.

Paul, sixth place in the men's sprint event, rode in the sec­ond semi­fi­nal soon af­ter and he suf­fered a sim­i­lar fate, just miss­ing out on a spot in the fi­nal af­ter plac­ing fourth and was ini­tial­ly slat­ed to ride for places sev­enth to 12th along with Browne, but was lat­er dis­qual­i­fied.

Browne com­pet­ed and crossed third in the place­ment ride to be ninth over­all clos­ing off T&T's medal-less run at Tokyo Games which was de­layed by a year due to the coro­n­avirus (COVID-19) pan­dem­ic.

The virus caused a rocky start to T&T's par­tic­i­pa­tion at the Olympics with two ath­letes and of­fi­cial test­ing pos­i­tive for COVID-19 in­clud­ing Wright, his coach Wen­dell Williams, a for­mer Olympian and hur­dler Sparkle McK­night.

They were im­me­di­ate­ly put in­to quar­an­tine which meant Wright, who was mak­ing his Olympic de­but, did not start in the men's long jump event and McK­night, a two-time Olympian was un­able to line up in the women's 400m hur­dles event, a huge damper for the trio af­fect­ed and the rest of the 33-ath­lete con­tin­gent.

They were led to Tokyo by cel­e­brat­ed javelin throw­er Keshorn Wal­cott, a two-time Olympic medal­list.

This, his third con­sec­u­tive Olympic Games, did not go as planned and un­for­tu­nate­ly, his third Olympic medal did ma­te­ri­alise as the To­co-born ath­lete did not ad­vance out of the qual­i­fi­ca­tion round to the fi­nal in the men's javelin event.

Wal­cott, the 2012 Lon­don cham­pi­on and 2016 Rio bronze medal­list was T&T's best prospect for a medal. How­ev­er, on Au­gust 3, Wal­cott could not send the spear past the 83.50m au­to­mat­ic mark and was not among the best 12 per­form­ers for the fi­nal. His best throw came on his third and fi­nal throw and it mea­sured 79.33 to fin­ish sev­enth in Group B and 16th over­all among the 30 par­tic­i­pants.

Long jumper Tyra Git­tens and shot put­ter Por­tious War­ren and were bright spots in ath­let­ics for T&T reach­ing the fi­nal round in their re­spec­tive events.

Git­tens, com­pet­ing at her first Olympic Games, placed 10th with her best leap mea­sur­ing 6.60m in the women's long jump. This af­ter pro­gress­ing from the qual­i­fi­ca­tion round, fifth in Group A with 6.72m to among the best per­form­ers.

Sim­i­lar­ly War­ren, a late ad­di­tion to the na­tion­al team, al­so reach the fi­nals in her Olympic de­but. Com­pet­ing in group A in the qual­i­fi­ca­tion round in the women's shot put event, she fin­ished fifth with a per­son­al best 18.75m to ad­vance to the fi­nal where she placed 11th with an 18.32m-toss.

Jereem "The dream" Richards was the lone ath­lete on track to ad­vance to a medal race in the men's 200m dash but the 2018 Com­mon­wealth Games 200m cham­pi­on placed eighth in a time of 20.39 sec­onds.

Sprint­er Michelle-Lee Ahye, just missed out on mak­ing the cham­pi­onship race in the women's 100m dash af­ter she placed third in the sec­ond semi­fi­nal, clock­ing a sea­son's best (sb) time of 11.00 sec­onds.

Cy­clist Te­niel Camp­bell, al­though she was un­able to com­plete the women's road race at her first Olympic Games, stop­ping some 16km from com­plet­ing the event, along with fel­low cy­clists Paul and Browne have proven that T&T has a great fu­ture in cy­cling. So look out for them come Paris 2024, the host city for the next Olympic Games.

Re­sults

Ath­let­ics

Michelle-Lee Ahye 100m - Semi­fi­nals 2 - 3rd (11.00-sb)

Kel­ly-Ann Bap­tiste 100m - Round 1 (heat 2) - 6th (11.48)

4x100m Re­lay (Bap­tiste, Ahye, Se­moy Hack­ett, Khal­i­fa St Fort, Ay­la Stanis­claus, Kai Selvon) - Round one 1 (heat 2) - 8th (43.62-sb)

Kyle Greaux 200m - Round 1 - 4th (20.77)

Jereem Richards 200m - Fi­nal - 8th (20.39)

Machel Ce­de­nio 400m - Semi­fi­nal 1 - 4th (44.93)

De­on Lendore 400m - Semi­fi­nal 2 - 6th (45.86)

Dwight St Hillaire 400m - Semi­fi­nal 3 - 7th (45.58)

4X400m Re­lay (Ce­de­nio, Lendore, St Hillaire, Jereem Richards, Asa Gue­vara, Che Lara) - Fi­nal 8th (3:00.85)

4X100m Re­lay (Richard Thomp­son, Kion Ben­jamin, Adell Colthrust, Er­ic Har­ri­son, Akan­ni His­lop, Jonathan Far­in­ha) - Round 1 (heat 1) 6th (38.63 - sb)

Tyra Git­tens Long jump - Fi­nal 10th (6.60m)

Por­tious War­ren - shot put - Fi­nal - 11th (18.32m)

Keshorn Wal­cott Javelin - Qual­i­fi­ca­tion round (Group B)- 7th /16th over­all (79.83m)

And­wuelle Wright Long jump - Did not start

Sparkle McK­night 400m hur­dles - Did not start

Box­ing

Aaron Prince Mid­dle (69-75kg) - Pre­lim­i­nary round 32 - Loss 4-0

Cy­cling

Te­niel Camp­bell: Road Race - Did not fin­ish

Kwe­si Browne

Sprint - 30th (Fly­ing Start)

Keirin - 9th

Nicholas Paul

Sprint -6th

Keirin - Dis­qual­i­fied

Ju­do

Gabriel­la Wood +78kgs - Elim­i­na­tion round of 32 - Loss 10-0

Row­ing

Fe­lice Aisha Chow Sin­gle sculls - Fi­nal D 1st (7:48.06) - 19th over­all

Sail­ing

Ath­lete An­drew Lewis Laser Men - 29th

Swim­ming

Dy­lan Carter

100m back­stroke - heat 2 - 4th (54.82)

100m freestyle -heat 6 -3rd (48.66)

100m but­ter­fly - heat 3 - 2nd (53.36)

50m freestyle - heat 6 -2nd (22.46)

Cherelle Thomp­son

50 Freestyle -heat 7 - 8th (26.19)