‘You Have To Want It’, Commonwealth Gold Medalist Tells Aspiring Athletes

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Kyron McMaster
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By Carlena Knight

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Young track and field athletes are being advised to put their best foot forward and be dedicated to the sport.

The encouragement came from two-time Commonwealth 400m hurdles gold medallist Kyron McMaster during an interview on the Good Morning JoJo Sports show yesterday.

The British Virgin Islands (BVI) track and field star who has Antiguan roots was offering words of wisdom to young athletes who are just starting their careers.

“A lot of people see track and field as an outlet and a way to get out and, that is true, but it isn’t easy. You are going to have nights when you want to quit. You are going to have nights when you want to not go training, but that comes with life.

“It is important that we, the older ones, guide and show them because really and truly I didn’t have [many] people to tell me this is how it’s going to be. So, my advice would be you have to push through those tough times. You have to do it because you want to do it. You have to be real with yourself as well.

“You can’t just do track because you see your friend doing track. If you are being real with yourself and you say, ‘track is what I want to do, track is the career I want to pursue’, you have to work 10 times harder, especially when you are younger. So, do what it takes just to see the light at the end of the tunnel,” McMaster said.

He added that being dedicated to the sport is paramount and advised the youngsters to find any available opportunity to train.

“Every free time that you could get, you do something. Like for me now, I play a lot of video games. So, in Call of Duty when I die, you have like 45 seconds before you reborn, I do some pushups, I do some ab work or something like that.

“You have to find every way to gain the advantage of your competitors. If you want to be a 400m runner, you have to have the lung capacity, you have to have the speed. So, it isn’t nothing to wake up in the morning and do two miles before school. You already have two miles over somebody. You gone training after and you do what you got to do. You have to put yourself in a position to really be a winner. You have to have that mindset,” McMaster advised.

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