Olympic champion Keshorn Walcott and speedster Jereem”The Dream” Richards headline a four-member Trinidad and Tobago team to the 2025 World Outdoor Athletic Championships in Tokyo, Japan, from Sept. 13-21.
Walcott (men’s javelin), Richards (men’s 400m), Leah Bertrand (women’s 100m & 200m), and Tyra Gittens-Spotsville (women’s long jump) are the four athletes named by the National Association of Athletic Administration of T&T (NAAATT).
The four athletes will be accompanied by team officials Keston Bellman (coach), Eric Claus (coach), Dexter Voisin (manager), and Alban Merepeza (medical).
Walcott warmed up for Tokyo with a third-placed finish at the Wanda Diamond League Finals in Zurich, Switzerland, on Aug. 28, with a distance of 84.95 metres. He also surpassed the World Championships qualifying standard (85.50) when he threw 86.16m in finishing seventh at the 2024 Paris Olympics and went over the mark again with 86.30m in Brussels, Diamond League leg on Aug. 22.
Walcott will be going for his first World Senior Outdoor title, with Paris Olympic winner Arshad Nadeem of Pakistan (86.40) ranking above him in eighth. Reigning World champion and Tokyo Olympic gold medallist India’s Neeraj Chopra (90.23) is in third. German Julian Weber has the longest throw for the season (91.51). Two-time World Champion (2019/2022) Anderson Peter of Grenada and winner of the North American, Central and Caribbean (NACAC) title, Curtis Thompson, of the USA, are also among the medal contenders.
Richards will go for gold in the men’s 400m after winning the 2022 World Indoor Crown in Belgrade, Serbia. He will aim to improve on his fourth place at the Paris Olympics, one year ago. Despite clocking a national record of 43.78 seconds, he missed the bronze by 0.04 seconds.
Bertrand heads to her second World Outdoor Championships with personal best times of 10.92 and 22.54 in the 100m and 200m, respectively. Bertrand won her third straight national 100m honours last month at the Hasely Crawford Stadium in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad with 11.04.
Gittens-Spotvile earned her Tokyo spot in the women’s long jump based on her world ranking after she missed the qualifying distance of 6.86m. Her best mark for the year is 6.73m. However, her third-placed finish at the NACAC Championships, victory at the Barbados Grand Prix, and runner-up placing in the Ed Murphy Classic in Tennessee provided her with sufficient points to be eligible to compete in the event in Tokyo.
Gittens-Spotsville is also the national record-holder with a time of 16.96.
The quartet will be seeking to win T&T’s first medal at the Championships since 2017, when Richards won bronze in the 200m and joined Jarrin Solomon, Machel Cedenio, and Lalonde Gordon to win the men’s 4x400m relay gold.
