By Raffique Shah
August 10, 2024

I thought I would never get over her. That night when everybody had left and just a few members of the family remained to keep us company, comforting words from my dearest relatives and friends hardly helped. I was just seeing her face everywhere.

Rosina must be laughing wherever she was: I feel sure she was in our room because I heard her laughter, her voice, and even saw her face smiling at me. Readers might become bored with this 78-year-old geezer who has just lost a wife. That happens almost every day to someone or several people worldwide, and when people read this column they’d probably laugh at me pining away after Rosina.

What rescued me would make many people laugh even more. It was the Paris Olympic meet. It was not the gala opening that I hardly watched. For me, the Olympic Games are under way only when I see action, competition, excellence, magic in the swimming pools, on the cycle and athletics tracks and fields, where ultimate pleasure is derived from watching human beings run faster, jump higher or leap farther.

I should explain that my preference for track and field events goes back to my boyhood days when that was all available to boys like me while we attended primary school. Everybody—students, staff, parents—got worked up over school sports, even if we ran in schoolyards, most of which were unpaved, with mango tree roots sticking out to serve as obstacles, not hurdles.

In better times our parents and teachers would afford to rent or borrow, sometimes even steal a whole recreation ground that some public official who held the keys viewed as his property.

When I was around age ten I used to walk six miles to and from school daily. My teachers seemed to think that showed I was a candidate for distance running. No tutoring, no coach (what is that?), no help at all. I was just asked one day.

I was lucky to get off my mark, because by the time the starter could put his whistle to mouth to send us on our way, some older boys had set a pace they were comfortable with. I thought they were too slow. So, I sped off. Of course by the time I completed a quarter of the field, I ran out of steam and all but collapsed. The same older boys passed me, laughing as they did. I love the sport and I thoroughly enjoy watching the events live on television—a development people who lived in that pre-information technology era may never understand.

I was disappointed that Trinidad and Tobago—which has featured some top, world-class sprinters and relay teams from as far back as 1948—could muster now only a handful of athletes, none of whom won a medal. My heart goes out to 400m specialist Jereem “The Dream” Richards; he made a valiant attempt to get our only medal at the Games this year and was out-leaned at the line, having to settle for fourth place.

Of the others who made the trip to Paris, only Keshorn Walcott seemed likely to medal, but he fell way short of the target, as did the few other men and women who went there, hopes high with eyes on the prize.

In contrast, we saw many young athletes from countries that are some of the smallest island-states in the world produce a wave of world-class athletes who snatched centre stage, with millions of people watching knowing nothing about Dominica, St Lucia, Grenada.

Jamaica appeared to have faltered, in the sense that they did not dominate the track events, but they introduced us to discus-throwing superstar Roje Stona who captured gold at the event. Then there was Shanieka Ricketts in the long jump and Rajindra Campbell in the shot put. Jamaica did their homework and they are reaping the rewards.

Like the majority of commentators, sports officials and fans who attended or watched the Games on live television as I did, I would be an unjust critic if I failed to mention something about the personality of St Lucia’s first gold medal winner, Julien Alfred. She not only showed her class on the track when she flogged American favourites, but she gained enormous respect for her statement and responses to media interviewers. In this vein Kirani James also won plaudits, as did Jereem when he apologised to his country for not bringing home a medal.

Now is not the time to hurl abuse at each other or engage in unseemly conduct for our failures in Paris. Clearly, though, we need to understand the economic potential of non-traditional products that could bring us rich rewards for minimal investment and promotion.

And, I got temporary relief from my grief in watching the Caribbean’s performance at this year’s Olympic Games.