Medallists honoured at Muschett High

FIRST-TIME medallists at the annual ISSA/GraceKennedy Boys and Girls’ Athletics Championships (Champs), Shanoya Douglas, Johan-Ramaldo Smythe and Osmond Holt were honoured by Muschett High during a parade in Wakefield Square in Trelawny yesterday.

The school, which is in its 55th year and has participated every year at Champs, also earned top three positions at the meet for the first time.

Douglas won gold medals in the Class Two girls’ 200 metres and 400 metres. Smythe collected a gold medal in the 200m for Class Two boys while Holt pocketed a bronze medal in the decathlon.

According to double gold medallist Douglas, she had a lot of belief and athletes like herself should be confident and focus on being themselves while competing.

“I encourage athletes to believe in themselves and be passionate about what they want and go for what they want. Nothing matters, nobody else matters but yourself,” Douglas declared.

Meantime, both Smythe and Holt said the athletes should listen to their coaches and work hard.

The din from horns, pot covers and music had students, staff and community members energised as they walked the streets to honour the athletes who brought them pride.

With track and field not a very popular sport at the school, the medallists commended their coach Garth Smythe for the confidence he instilled in them so they could perform well at Champs.

“He helped us a lot. He is always back and forth with us telling us what is wrong from what is right,” Holt said.

“His passion for track and field rubs off on the people who are around him. The effect he has on us is huge. We see it in our running and how passionate we are. We love him that much. All of us here want a career out of this, so we push for what we want,” Douglas added.

As for their preparation and time invested in the sport, Smythe said there are challenges.

“A lot of 4:30 a.m. and 5:30 a.m. out of our beds for training. We invest a lot of time, we train with the team and sometimes at the gym working hard just for this opportunity,” he explained.

“The drills, a lot of vomiting and sacrifice, we said we cannot do this for nothing,” he added.

The athletes would train three times on some days and were grateful for the parade and happy to make the parish of Trelawny proud.

“We felt great and it was wonderful feeling. It was amazing knowing that we are the first to win medals for the school. It felt good to see that they appreciated what we did for the community and to come out and support us,” Smythe said.