TRINIDAD and Tobago’s history-making 4x400m relay team were, on Sunday, awarded the Chaconia Gold Medal, that country’s second highest national honour at the annual awards ceremony at the National Academy for the Performing Arts in Port of Spain.

The team of Lalonde Gordon, Machel Cedenio, Jereem Richards and Jarrin Solomon as well as substitute Renny Quow set a world-leading and new national record of 2:58.12 to defeat the United States and win gold at the IAAF World Championships in London in August.
It was the first time that T&T were winning a mile relay gold medal at a major championship. The athletes who were not present at Sunday’s ceremony will be presented with their medals at a date to be announced.

President of the National Administration of Athletic Associations (NAAA) Ephraim Serrette said while being proud of the achievement, it was a bittersweet day for the association.
Just recently, Trinidad and Tobago’s Michelle Lee Ahye, who was a sprint finalist at the IAAF World Championships, lamented the fact that the women’s team that won a bronze medal at the 2015 championships in Beijing, but plans were being made to honour the gold medal winning men’s team in London this past summer.
This has left the NAAA president conflicted.

“It is always good that they recognised our national athletes’ performances, but sometimes it’s bittersweet because at this time we are still trying to sort out this national sports policy and dealing with the issues of support and reward,” he said.
“So you have athletes with issues, lack of support and financial reward and then you’re being honoured at this level, so for the federation I am very happy that at this time they are trying to sort out the issues dealing with funding and reward. Once that is done there will be nobody up in arms about what you get, who gets what.”
T&T Sports Minister Darryl Smith assured SportsMax.tv that the national sports policy

addressing those issues would be ready by later this year.
“We are now doing a new sports policy that includes athletes funding, the rewarding of athletes, grassroots programmes, sports tourism,” Smith had said last month.
“The draft policy has been completed and we are in the final stages of which that policy will be taken to Cabinet to be approved. Once it is approved we will have a new policy that can deal with all these things.”