media_artricles :: 2014

The Genesis Chapter

'64 success complete with 4x4 bronze

Prior to the 1964 Games in Tokyo, Japan, Trinidad and Tobago’s Olympic honour roll featured just two men—weightlifters Rodney Wilkes and Lennox Kilgour.

Ahead of the men’s 4x400 metres final, in Tokyo, the list doubled, 200m bronze medallist Edwin Roberts and 400m silver medallist Wendell Mottley opening the country’s Olympic track and field account.

There was the opportunity for Edwin Skinner, Kent Bernard, Roberts and Mottley to add to the haul in the 4x4 championship race.

Skinner ran the leadoff leg for T&T.

“I brought the baton in about the same with the US and Jamaica.”

Skinner handed the baton to Kent Bernard, who had to do battle with 400m gold medallist Mike Larrabee, of the United States.

“When we got to the straightaway,” says Bernard, “Larrabee started moving, and I did too. We both passed the Englishman, and I gave it to Roberts in a good position.”

Roberts squared off against American Ulis Williams.

“He and I ran neck and neck,” Roberts recalls, “and I passed off the stick to Wendell.”

Anchorman Mottley decided to go for gold, chasing American Henry Carr, the 200m champion.

“I got the baton break in a crowd of athletes, and I immediately took the baton with George Kerr from Jamaica slightly ahead of me and on the inside of me, and I knew that if I was to catch the United States, I couldn’t wait. As I tried to go around Kerr, he was running with the baton flailing so I had to run wide. That took a lot of energy and time, so coming into the final 50 yards or so I ran out of gas.

“I couldn’t fend off the challenge from Britain’s (Robbie) Brightwell,” Mottley explains, “and we had to settle for third place. Had I played safe and knew that I couldn’t catch the US, we could have certainly won the silver.”

Skinner says there was momentary disappointment when Mottley crossed the finish line third, T&T earning bronze in three minutes, 01.7 seconds, behind United States (3:00.7) and Great Britain (3:01.6).

“I said ‘oh my gosh, it didn’t happen’. But then it occurred to me, ‘hey, you won an Olympic medal’. I was extremely elated.”

T&T reached the men’s 4x400m final at the next four Olympic Games-- ‘68, ’72, ’76, and ’80. There was another championship race appearance at the 1992 Games in Barcelona, Spain. But it was not until 2012 that the 1964 top-three achievement was matched, Lalonde Gordon, Jarrin Solomon, Ade Alleyne-Forte and Deon Lendore combining for bronze in London, England in a then national record time of 2:59.40.

“It didn’t hit me right away,” says Solomon, “but it hit me probably the next couple days or the next week. Everybody was saying that was a big feat for you guys. You weren’t supposed to get a medal, you weren’t picked to get a medal. You came out of nowhere and ran the best that Trinidad and Tobago has ever run. Now you’re putting T&T back on the map, as far as the 4x4 goes, since the 1964 Olympics.

“So once everybody started talking about that, that’s when the sense of history kicked in, that we did something special.”

Skinner was one of the T&T coaches at the 2012 London Games. He took a special interest in the men’s 4x4 final, and was particularly pleased when anchorman Lendore fought off a strong challenge from Great Britain’s Martyn Rooney.

“Some days before,” says Lendore, “coach Edwin Skinner told us about the fact that they got dipped out by Great Britain. After we attained the medal, I went up to him and told him that I did this one for him, to bring back revenge for what happened to them back in those days.”

Forty-eight years after the 1964 successes, T&T finally surpassed that three-medal haul. Keshorn Walcott struck gold in the men’s javelin, leading the charge as the country produced a record haul of four Olympic medals in London. Lalonde Gordon in the men’s 400, the men’s 4x4 team, and the men’s 4x100m combination of Keston Bledman, Marc Burns, Emmanuel Callendar and Richard “Torpedo” Thompson earned bronze medals for T&T.

In between 1964 and 2012, Hasely Crawford captured the country’s first gold, winning the men’s 100m dash in 1976, Ato Boldon secured four individual sprint medals in 1996 and 2000, and Thompson earned 100m silver in 2008, before teaming up with Bledman, Burns and Callendar for 4x1 silver at the same Games. Aaron Armstrong ran in the 2008 4x1 heats, and was also awarded a silver medal.

“With all respect to what happened prior to 1964 with our first medals in weightlifting,” says Boldon, who is now one of the world’s leading track and field analysts, “you cannot write the story of Trinidad and Tobago track and field without starting with Genesis. The Genesis chapter is 1964.”

The Tokyo Games, coming just two years after T&T attained independence, undoubtedly signalled the birth of a track nation.

Top