Bula The Tertiary Scholarships and Loans Service (TSLS) will not tolerate “fabricated” claims from graduates about not finding employment after their graduation. TSLS CEO Hasmukh Lal says some students emotionally blackmailed them so that they could be allowed to travel overseas. That’s the big news on the front page of The Fiji Times for Monday, August 5.
And Lautoka are the Battle of the Giants soccer tournament champions! Synopsis Olympic champion! What a race! What a beauty! What a moment for Saint Lucia! Who would have thought that a sprinter from the tiny Caribbean Island would one day be on top of the world? All eyes were on American Sha’Carri Richardson. She got the hot tag! She was pushed as the favourite ahead of the field for the women’s 100m final. Back on home soil in Saint Lucia, thousands of fans, part of a watch party, stood in front of a giant screen.
It was set up by the Ministry of Youth Development and Sports Saint Lucia at four venues. They watched as their runner Julien Alfreda prepared for the race of her life, and their lives! Then it happened! And they stood as one, screaming, shouting for joy and just riding on her effort! It was a powerful show by an athlete who has come off the starter’s block and into the annals of history. There was pandemonium.
Fists were thrown into the air. The Prime Minister of Saint Lucia, Phillip J. Pierre was over the moon.
He shared his excitement about Alfred’s Olympic victory, and the Olympic Games website reported how he responded to a phone call with Jamaican radio station Nationwide90FM, saying: “I am happy, I am happy, I am happy; that’s all I can say.” “This is a historic day, and I am very happy that I can be part of that history. It is raining, but no one cares about the rain.
” According to the website, his office shared congratulations to Alfred on social media, with one post proclaiming August 3 “Juju Day”. Mark her name! It’s going to reach dizzying heights! We had Usain Bolt! Julien Alfreda is a powerful reminder of perseverance. She is an apt example of commitment and starting with the bare minimum! Saint Lucia had never won a medal since its debut at the Olympics in 1996.
Her journey to the top wasn’t a bed of roses either. She attracted attention as a youth athlete, winning the women’s 100m race at the 2017 Commonwealth Youth Games and winning a silver medal in the same event at the Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires in 2018. Then she attended college at the University of Texas where she won two National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) titles in the women’s 100m and one title in the women’s 200m race.
She was selected to represent Saint Lucia at the 2023 World Athletics Championship where she came fourth in the women’s 200m race and fifth in the women’s 100m race. The rest, as the saying goes, is history. She wore Saint Lucian colours during the 2024 World Athletics Indoor Championships where she won the women’s 60m race with a time of 6.
98 seconds and came off with a 10.78 seconds run in the Racers Grand Prix in June this year. Her time of 10.
72 seconds in the women’s 100m final in Paris is a major milestone in her career, and according to experts, make her the “fastest woman in the world” for the first time. At 23 years old, her growing fans will be looking forward to more victories in the future. So what are our lessons here? Saint Lucia has a population, according to the World Bank in 2022, of just 179,857.
Alfreda spoke about things we take for granted: “”We barely have the right facilities. The stadium is not fixed. I hope this gold medal will help Saint Lucia build a new stadium, to help the sport grow.
” That must challenge our athletes to reach out for a gold medal at the highest sporting platform. We have four years to prepare for the next event! This should also serve as a reminder for sporting bodies like soccer for instance to get into the FIFA World Cup! There must be no excuses given because none should be accepted! This should inspire us all: When Alfreda spoke about how she started her morning of the race, she said: “I woke up and wrote it down, ‘Julien Alfred, Olympic champion’. So I think believing in myself really was important.
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