WESTERN BUREAU:
WHEN HE won the gold medal in the men’s 400 metres final at the World Championships in Budapest, Hungary, yesterday, 21-year-old Antonio Watson of Duncans in Trelawny gave Jamaicans every reason to celebrate.
This victory has ignited a much-needed celebration for family and friends.
It has been 40 years since Jamaica won this event at the World Athletics Championships, with Bert Cameron achieving the feat in 1983.
Watson’s grandfather, Borrisford Bowen, who paused his celebration to speak with The Gleaner from his Duncans community, said he and his wife, Pearlene, are not surprised at their grandson’s performance in his first senior World Championships appearance.
“We saw it coming,” Bowen said of his grandson’s World Championships gold medal.
“Personally, I was only worried about Stephen Gardner, and after he pulled up, immediately I said Antonio is going to win the gold medal.”
He said that he and his wife were extremely confident of the win, “especially when he beat Wayde Van Niekerk [South African World and Olympic record holder] in the semi-final, and the Americans were no match”.
The celebration in the Duncans community was evident all over in the streets and bars of the town “and will continue many more years to come”, he boasted.
“Everybody knows him. People are gathered in every little shop and bar to watch him beat the world,” added Bowen, who noted that the community and family shared a strong bond with Watson.
Michele Smith-Gilzine, principal at Duncans All-Age School, which Watson attended as a child, says Watson’s performance in Budapest has placed the spotlight on the school. She added that there are many other talents there waiting to be discovered in the field of sports.
“It makes the school and the little district of Longwood, where he is from, extremely proud of him,” Smith-Gilzine said.
She noted that Watson is from humble beginnings and that his family and the community cared for him.
The principal also had high praises for her teachers and coach Carlton Reid, who worked with Watson while he was a student at Duncans All-Age.
She commended the effort, especially against the background that the school does not have a playing field and the children had to walk about two miles to Silver Sands in order to access a field in that community.
Reid, who still coaches the school’s track team, told The Gleaner that he discovered that Watson was a potential world beater and that he knew from early that he had the ability to entertain the world.
“He gave good performances at the then JPS Western Primary Schools Athletics Championships, running and setting a few records before moving on to Petersfield High School in Westmoreland,” Reid shared.
“I told everybody that he is going to go to the Olympics in 2024, where we anticipate that he will dismantle the Games by setting a new world record,” the coach continued.
“I wasn’t focused on this World Championships. The plan we had was that he was to go to Petersfield High School and then to the Racers Track Club. But his high school journey was shortened when Glen Mills went for him,” Reid noted.