Rikkoi Brathwaite wrapped up his first Olympic appearance with a 10:15 non-advancing 8th place finish running in Heat 1 Lane 2 of the 100m semifinals on August 4 at the Stade de France, Paris.
“Coming out of the warmup, everything was firing right. I had everything going. I was ready, waited a while in the call room before heading into the race. When the gun fired, I think I got out first. As the race progressed, I had a lot of cramps everywhere at that point but still pursued the race and finished with a 10.15. It isn’t how I wanted to end the Season, but it is what it is, and I’ll come back stronger,” said Brathwaite.
Brathwaite lined up in his heat against powerful contestants including the 2 sprinters that would make it to the 100m finals, including Noah Lyles (USA) and Oblique Seville (Jamaica) but remained unphased.
“I don’t focus on anyone at the point of lining up. I don’t worry about nobody else; I just worry about how my execution of the race will unfold,” said Brathwaite. “You visualize your execution weeks, before, days before, hours before – so when you realise that that you’re not doing what you visualized, you have a mental queue to revert to plan.”
On his experience competing in a packed stadium holding 80,000 spectators, Brathwaite said, “When I looked up, I noticed that the stadium goes to the heavens – it’s huge – and I thought “This is it. This is what I live for. This is what I want.” It’s hard to explain the immensity, the crowd and intensity of it all.”
“This was a great event to watch and the enormity of Rikkoi’s achievement was made all the more obvious as we observed him compete fearlessly against the worlds’ current leading 100m sprinters,” said BVI Olympic Committee President Ephraim Penn. “This is Rikkoi’s first Olympics and we are looking forward to seeing him continue his journey to success at Los Angeles 2028.”
Attending the Paris 2024 Games, Honourable Sharie de Castor, Minister for Education, Youth Affairs and Sports watched the race from the tribunes. “Congratulations to Rikkoi Brathwaite on his outstanding performance in the semi-finals of the men’s 100m!” said Hon. De Castro. “By being the first male from the BVI to advance to this level, Rikkoi has made history and represented our territory with immense pride. His drive and hunger for more are evident, and I am confident he will continue to develop his craft and represent the BVI with distinction. Keep pushing, Rikkoi! The finish line is just the beginning!”
Brathwaite became the first BVI male to advance to the 100m semifinals at an Olympic Games when he ran a qualifying time of 10.13 that placed him 3rd in Round 1 Heat 6 on August 3.
The Men’s 100m was won by Lyles in a hotly contested finals later that night of August 4 in a time of 9.79 (PB), beating Kishane Thompson (Jamaica) by five-thousandths of a second. Fred Kerley (USA) came 3rd in 9.81 (SB).
Adaejah Hodge ran a time of 23:00 in Heat 6 of the 200m Round 1 for a 5th place finish as she made her Olympic debut at the Paris 2024 Games at just 18 years of age – the youngest competitor in the event. With the top 3 in each of the 6 heats qualifying automatically for the semifinals, Hodge will compete in the Repechage Heat 1 in Lane 7 at 12:50pm / 6:50am BVI time on Monday, August 5.
“It was a blessing to be able to go on track and race today. I was super excited to go out in front of the crowd and zoned them out when I got to the line,” said Hodge. “I got a little tense, but that could’ve been the first time, Olympic stage-nerves but it’s all good. I’m looking forward to attacking the next race.”
First in each Repechage heat automatically qualify (Q) for the semifinal and the next 2 fastest (q) advance to semifinal.
Schedule and results can be found here.
Thad Lettsome competing on Day 4 of the Men’s Dinghy ILCA7 spent 5 hours on the water for races 7 & 8 on August 4 in Marseille, France due to a number of “Black Flag” restarts.
In winds that were a little bit lighter and fickle compared to races 5 and 6 the previous day on August 3, Lettsome beat a quarter of the fleet to round the 2nd mark in 18th place ending race 7 in a decent 26/43 place.
“Thad got off to a great start in Race 8 and, in another really tight race, was just on the back of the trailing pack” said Coach Chris Watters. “He was right in it with really close racing – closer than we’ve seen along with lots of improvement.”
Lettsome placed 37/43 in race 8 for an overall position of 38/43.
Lettsome will compete in races 9 and 10 starting at 2:40pm / 8:40am on August 5. The medal race takes place on August 6. The event schedule and results can be found on Paris 2024.sailing.org searching for Men’s Dinghy.
Hodge and Lettsome were the VI’s Flagbearers at the historic Opening Ceremony along the River Seine on July 26.
World Silver medalist and Tokyo 2020 4th place finalist, Olympian Kyron McMaster will compete in the 400m hurdles Round 1 on August 5 starting at 10:05am/4:05am AST.
Approximately 10,500 participants from over 200 Olympic Delegations will compete in 32 Olympic sports. The Games can be followed live on SportsMax Channels.
