A territory-wide motorcade celebration and a cash reward may be on the cards for the double Commonwealth Games champion Kyron McMaster to honour his historic achievement at the recently concluded international competition.
McMaster, who became the first repeat champion of the Commonwealth Games in 52 years, stormed to gold in the Men’s 400-Meter-Hurdles event with a time of 48.93 seconds.
During a recent press conference, Premier Dr. the Honourable Natalio Wheatley was asked whether his government had any plans to celebrate McMaster’s achievement in a major way.
Premier Wheatley responded, “It is important to note that there is a policy in place in terms of awards when you win these major awards, I believe, when winning a Commonwealth gold medal before that he was awarded $30,000 in accordance with the previous policy.”
He added, “I would anticipate that he would get the same type of award now and that we should have a ceremony honouring him, possibly the motorcade that we usually have when the athletes return and perhaps something even more. Because of course with Chantel [Malone] a certain precedent was set and I think it would be important for us to maintain the precedent.”
The premier also said it is important for his government to ensure that they update the respective policies to facilitate the different types of awards for persons based on their achievements, as opposed to “doing things adhoc”.
Small nation achieving big things
Dr. Wheatley also highlighted the significance of McMaster’s achievement which he said allowed a small nation like the BVI to come out victorious against other nations that have population sizes thousands of times larger than the territory.
He said, “I was there at the opening ceremony and you see the nations in the Commonwealth. I mean, these are huge nations, like you have India with 1.3 billion people, you have Canada, you have England, you have Australia, you have New Zealand, you have Bangladesh. The BVI is one of the smallest countries to be there along with the other Overseas Territories which are small.”
Confident the BVI will continue to strive
The leader of government business also expressed his confidence in local athletes’ ability to continue to compete at the highest levels on the world stage.
“I think the lesson really for our young athletes is, nothing is impossible. You can do it if you train hard, you dedicate yourselves, you can be on the top of the world in your area of interest. And that’s just sports. The BVI has amazed me,” Premier Wheatley stated.