Sprint hurdler Brathwaite calls time on his career

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (CMC):

Barbadian sprint hurdler Shane Brathwaite announced his retirement from track and field on Wednesday.

The 34-year-old Commonwealth Games silver medallist and Pan American Games champion told local media he did not come to his decision lightly, but he was at peace with it, and he thought it was the right thing to do at the right time.

Brathwaite endured injury setbacks that forced him to miss the World Championships last year in the Hungarian capital of Budapest and early season events this year, and it led him to decide about his immediate future in the sport, considering that they may have eroded his chances of qualifying for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, France.

“I have officially retired from the sport of track and field,” he told CBC TV Barbados. “It was a very, very tough decision because it is something that I have been doing for a very, very long time.

“My mind is made up because of these last eight months because my body has not responded in the way that it used to.”

Brathwaite, whose career best time was 13.21 seconds to win bronze at the Pan Am Games nine years ago in the Canadian city of Toronto, reached the final of the men’s sprint hurdles at the World Championships twice in 2017 in London and 2019 in Doha, Qatar, finishing sixth in both races.

“I just wanna say ‘thank you’ to everyone for the support, for being there, and for the backing,” he said. “There are so many people, so many coaches that played a part in my career, and it was always an honour to compete for my country.”

Although he shares a birthplace, surname, and specialty with 2009 world champion Ryan Brathwaite, after whom the track is named at the Usain Bolt Complex on the Cave Hill campus of the University of the West Indies in Barbados, the two are not related.