Keshorn Walcott begins elusive Worlds' medal quest

TRINIDAD and Tobago’s double-Olympic medallist Keshorn Walcott begins his quest for an elusive World Athletics Championships medal when the men’s javelin qualifying round launches off at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon on Thursday.

Group A qualification gets underway from 8.05pm (TT time) followed by Group B, 90 minutes later.

This will be Walcott’s fifth attempt at securing a medal at the World Champs, having placed 19th (Russia 2013), 26th (China 2015), seventh (UK 2017) and 11th (Qatar 2019) at previous editions.

Walcott has won medals at all major international meets, except World Championships. He did, however, win gold at the World Junior Championships in Spain in 2012, mere weeks before his historic Olympic gold showing at the London Games.

After a surprising seventh-place finish at the Tokyo Games last year, the TT athlete is intent on delivering an improved showing.

Walcott’s 89.07 metres distance achieved at the FBK Games in the Netherlands in early June, is the sixth best distance in the world for 2022.

The top-three distances attained for the year thus far came from 25-year-old Grenadian Anderson Peters (93.07m), Czech Republic’s Jakub Vadlejch (90.88m) and India’s Olympic gold medallist Neeraj Chopra (89.94m).

Prior to the world meet, Walcott affirmed he was in great physical and mental shape owing to the dedication of his coach Ismael Lopez Mastrapa and chiropractor Alban Merepeza.

Additionally, on Saturday, TT Olympian Tyra Gittens makes her World Champs debut in the women’s long jump. She hits the track in the qualification round from 3pm (TT time).

Also in action from 8.40pm would be TT’s men 4x400m relay team of Jereem Richards, Dwight St Hillaire, Asa Guevara, Shakeem McKay and Kashief King in their opening heat.

TT are yet to earn a medal at the games although Richards was favoured to grab a podium place in the men’s 200m event after press time on Wednesday.