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  • 6 weeks ago
After a successful World Championship in Tokyo where T&T grabbed gold and silver from Keshorn Walcott and Jereem Richards.

T&T's first World Championship Gold Medallist Ato Boldon sat down for a wide ranging reflection on his athletic career and life after athletics.

And the 200 meter world record holder revealed his coaching accolades and his next career target.
Transcript
00:00Ato Bolan is still Trinidad and Tobago's most decorated Olympic athlete.
00:05He has a stadium named after him and is one of the most respected track and field television analysts around.
00:11But very few may know that his skills went beyond just being a track star
00:15as he revealed his additional role at the 2001 World Championships in Edmonton, Canada.
00:20I took 17-year-old Darrell Brown. I don't even know if he was 17 at the time.
00:26That boy was a monster. 18-year-old Mark Burns and I think J.C. Harper.
00:31I remember J.C. Harper. He might have been 21, 22 at the time. I was the old man at 26.
00:37Not only was I on the team, I coached the team. For real?
00:41So the biggest piece of trivia that not even Trinities know is that I actually coached
00:48the Trinidad and Tobago men's team to its first ever medal and the women's team as well
00:54because as the coach in 2015, the actual coach when the women get bronze in Beijing in 2015 at Worlds.
01:00So I am most proud of the fact that I was able to convince those other three gentlemen,
01:05gentlemen, we can do this.
01:07And we watched as other teams started dropping the baton.
01:11South Africa eventually won and we have the silver.
01:14The four-time Olympic medalist recently spoke on his career on the Ready, Set, Go podcast
01:19with Olympic gold medalist Justin Gatlin and veteran coach Rodney Green.
01:24Bolden has transitioned from a track star to one of the most trusted television analysts
01:28and explained how he was able to make the transition.
01:31I go sit in the truck and understand how to produce a television show.
01:36And then one time in 2005, I'm retired one year, Dwight Stones and Carol Lewis have to
01:44do a meet in New York and they have to do NCAAs and it's the same weekend.
01:49So they go to New York and I get my shot.
01:51That was 05.
01:52That was 20 years last month.
01:55I never look back.
01:56Earlier this year, he created history after winning his first sports Emmy with NBC and
02:01he's already plotting another first.
02:03And I'm like, okay, so now that I have the Emmy, is it so wild to think that maybe in
02:08the future I get like a producing Oscar?
02:10I got to start thinking that way because you can't think, oh no, I'll never get that.
02:14Because if I had thought that with the Emmy, I wouldn't be here.
02:17So yeah, I would like when it's all said and done.
02:20I'm never going to get a Tony, I don't think.
02:23But I would, yeah, sure, I'd like to have something else in another sphere.
02:28I like to go and find myself in places that people ain't looking for me.
02:33Terrence Clark, TV6 Sport.
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