By Carlena Knight
One of Antigua and Barbuda’s best all round athletes, Andy “Job” Christian revealed that his historic gold medal performance at the CARIFTA Games in 1977 was in fact just a bit of ‘luck.’
Christian, who was featured on the Good Morning JoJo Sports show, went into a bit more detail about his performance in the pole vault including his use of a bamboo-made pole instead of the fiber-glass poles like his competitors.
“I think that was more an accident,” he said jokingly. “We were competing, everyone was competing, and at that time, the people to beat were Bermuda and the Bahamas, they had some good guys. Going there, we were just saying ok, look, do your best and these guys were using fiber-glass poles at that time, and in Antigua, we had the metal poles and bamboo, so I just decided let me just stick to my bamboo and with luck, Antigua got a medal.”
The Villa native who now resides in Germany says that it was his love for his country that has always kept him motivated in competing in a number of sports, and especially at CARIFTA in Barbados that year.
“In my whole life, even here in Germany, my reaction is just to represent Antigua…so like now everything is closed, so I am on Zoom and I have about 20 families who tune in, and the first thing I tell them is we going to do an Antiguan work out. That’s for me the most important thing, just representing Antigua, just representing my country and being proud of where I’m from, and I am always proud of Antigua. I do everything for Antigua.”