 live action there on Sportsmax 2 from the corporate area track and field championship at the Ashenheim Stadium at Jamaica College. Live coverage there with Ricardo Chambers and we're going to start off the zone today with some track and field because the Grenadier and the Catholic Linden Victor won his first global medal at last year's World Championship in Budapest, Hungary. He caught the bronze medal totaling 8,756 points, a national record that in the 10 event competition. The Grenadier needed a championship best 54.97 meters in the disgust row to secure the bronze medal. He will now look to take his success to the Olympic Games later this year. Linden Victor now joins us to discuss his Olympic preparations and plans for the season. We'll talk to him in just a moment but when we look at his career Linden we have to be very proud of this Grenadier and how hard he has battled in the past six or seven years to get where he is at at the moment. Absolutely, I mean the Catholic is one of the toughest events actually it's called the toughest event in track and field and he's excelled at it twice Commonwealth champion he's won medals at the Pan American Games and of course his first global medal last year which took some doing because it took a lifetime best for him just to get onto the podium that's how tough it is you know so it's been a it's been a good journey for him and I hope that going into the Olympics in Paris this summer that he'll be able to at least replicate that performance and end up on the podium again. Yeah all right Linden is joining us now via zoom to talk about his plans for this year but can I start by asking you about the officer of the order of British Empire that you've been named to Victor in the 2024 New Year's Honours list that that's that's a great honor isn't it how did that grab you? Yeah definitely it was unexpected I just got an email and they said that I was awarded that and I actually had to look it up to understand exactly what it meant and then I was like wow it's definitely an honor anytime you're sporting abilities is recognized in any way and for me you know just whatever recognition I get for my athletic ability is humbling but to be an OBE is up there in my accomplishments I will say that. Well you have to say that because you have joined a big list of an elite list of global performance who are OBE's accorded so by Britain's royalty. Let me start here though from a from a Linden Victor perspective and get from you the kind of season you had last year and how it sets you up for the Paris Olympic Games because the cycle for the Olympics are a little different because the 2020 Olympics because of the pandemic was actually staged in 2021 so the cycle now is a three-year cycle and not the regular four years how well prepared are you do you think Linden for the Paris assignment. Well I'm getting there after after after Tokyo I was I finished seventh and I'm a pretty much clean house I got a new coach and new agent and new medical staff and you know so far it's been going good I've been there two years now and I'm being I'm being coached by America's Chris Huffins who wants who won the bronze medal in the Olympics you know and so far it's been going good I'm not going to say he hasn't been challenging because it's been really challenging especially last year where I only had four basically four months to train because I was hurt all year and the last four months we just we just put in a lot of training so I'm just trying to build off what the last two years has been and see how I get how I can get better each each and every year. Yeah Linden can you talk to us about your decision to clean house as you put it was it a case of you being dissatisfied with your your training setup and so on talk to us about your decision to as you put it clean house. No I wouldn't like I just feel like I had more in the tank and I just wanted the right help and God put the right people in my life at the right time that will help me that that's been helping me to to get to that point I feel like everything that I've been through in my life prior to that is just like a stepping stone to get me to the right people and so far it's been it's been good you know I just felt like I had more in me that I wanted to get out and I had some disappointments in in the past in major competitions so I just feel like I needed a new start. Linden you mentioned of course a new medical team I mean the new medical staff which is crucial because you pulled out of the Pan Am games last year with what has been described as chronic issues in terms of your adducta and of course the sore muscles that required rest and third before minimum of six weeks I think they said it was where are you now in terms of those injuries as you prepare for you know the ultimate the Olympic games. Well that that's that's an injury that's been plaguing me all through it last year and um like I said for the first six months of the season I was hurt and then we got we got four months of training in and we really dialed in in that in that four months but it's still there it's still it's still lingering but I think I think that my team we're dealing with it a little better than we did last year because we we know what it is last year we were we we went to every doctor trying to figure out what it was and we thought it was a sports hernia we thought it was a torn muscle we like we just didn't know until we went to another person and they told us it was something called osteitis pubis which is just information in the pelvic bone so um I don't think it's going to go away anytime soon I thought we thought we had to do surgery and stuff but luckily there's no surgery involved it's just just a matter of treating it and being cautious with some of the events like the hurdles and a pole walk and the the the events that requires a lot of takeoff and aggressiveness in the in the in the pubic area. So so does that impact the way in which you prepare and how intense I mean give me a sense of how you mine is training though because your training is different from everybody else's it's it's more intense it's 10 events and of course they mentioned hurdles and other things that require you to put extra stress on those particular areas of your body. How do you balance that now in terms of managing the injury and of course being at the optimal level in terms of your training? Well you know it's just a testament to my team around me you know we we it one it takes a lot more treatment I think we my coaches have learned to protect me for myself because I always want to do more and more and more and more and as I've gotten older I've learned to trust trust a little bit more because I always feel like I'm not doing enough or I should do more and you know so we we we kind of figure out a system where there are days when I still can't even walk because they hurt so much and then that we just back off for a couple days and it is back to to where it has to be. Well I'm wishing you all the best with that. I want more questions before I throw you back to Lance but yeah give me a sense of you know you're you took a big a big personal best for the discourse for you to qualify well to get onto the podium last year you know where are your not I wanted to expose it to the world but certainly where are the weaknesses that you think that you need to strengthen to enhance your chances of ending up on the podium in Paris? Well I mean the obvious events like pole vault we don't pole vault in Grenada yep I had to learn pole vault when I came to America so I actually got some new poles this year I've never jumped on them but we we've gotten new poles so I'm trying to see how these poles will work for the Olympics and you know my hurdles my hurdles is a big one I think I think once I once I get my hurdles going that's a good pole vault video right there um yeah once I get these two events clicking and my 1500 you know I've never been I never loved the 1500 but I think the 1500 at the world championships I had to really dig deeper and run a personal best so I'm hoping to have that weapon in if I ever needed to to run well I need to run to get on the podium. Yeah Lyndon um how is your javelin coming along we know that from a from a national track and field culture Grenada is pretty strong with with javelin um Paul Philip one of the leading coaches there has prepared a lot of your outstanding javelin throwers including the current well the top rated and two-time world champion Anderson Peters um how much how much how much is your javelin satisfying you at the moment as part of your 10 event program um it's it's actually so my javelin has always been my weapon and um three years ago I told my oblique during the javelin and I've never I've never really been um I've never really gotten back to this I'm obviously I'm over a 70 meters but my coaches think I should I should be throwing further but um after tearing my oblique in the javelin um it's something that I've I've never really found the form that I used to have in the javelin um it's something that we're working on a lot um I'm getting my confidence in in the javelin and I'm hoping that for some reason when I need a big one it comes you know so I'm hoping that if I need a big one at the olympics uh it's going to come yeah the captain doesn't have a long history um linden of of the cathletes um claston bernard and morris smith um two jamaicans your brother curt felix also fairly prominent globally as as the cathletes in the past two decades or so where did this inspiration come from to become a decathlete because as as latin just just referenced it is a grueling event and if i'm a teenager having an interest in track and field i'm i'm not sure i'm not sure the cathlin would be my choice it sounds sounds too much um i think i think it's a testament to the culture that's that's in granada right now where every you know how you want to represent your house and get points for your house so everybody would do a little bit of all the events like kirani would throw the javelin like um kirani would long jump and he would still dominate all the the running events and i um i was fortunate enough because i always wanted the biggest trophy and the person with the biggest trophy person with the most points i always got the biggest trophy so i would i would dabble in all in all of the events and then um watching my brother excel in the decathlon i was just like it was a easy transition because i was a good throw up but i also had the basic sprinting skills because i would i would win all the throws and finish like second or third in in the hundred and 200 so it was it was a smooth transition and then as a younger athlete see my brother gets more scholarship and seeing other athletes excel i was like you know i think that's something that i can i can i can explore i would say this though i never thought that doing the decathlon would get me this far i only did it because i wanted a sports scholarship because it was easy to get the sports scholarship being like a multi talented athlete and um you know i always say god has put the right people in my life to just help me get to the point that i'm at right now i want to ask you something because you mentioned you you mentioned of course your strength in the sprints one and four sounds like me in high school but the 1500 sprinters and long middle and long distances don't work very well give me a sense of what goes into your 1500 preparation because it cannot be easy and it probably is one of the more frustrating parts of your preparation give me a sense of how that works for you definitely especially for me since since i'm a door i need i have a lot of muscle mass yeah so i can't be i can't be like a lean skinny guy to run the 1500 so like like my coach now he hated the 1500 too so he understands like he has the worst 1500 i've ever seen so he understands he understands the the nature that goes into the into the decathlon 1500 and how to there's a difference in the way that you train for the decathlon 1500 and for the 1500 you know like the the tempo the miles and stuff obviously i can't put a bunch of miles if i want to run 10 400 and um so i i think i think we're figuring out what works for linden victor we do a lot of my my 1500 has a lot to do with my warm-up now so i would my warm-up will consist like a 10-minute jog just to keep building the endurance every single day so like if i run 10 minutes every single day for 200 days and that's a lot of miles that's just accumulating over over the time and then obviously we'll do a tempo work but i think that's one of the ways that we've learned to like trick meet my body into running 10 minutes so when i ask it to run four minutes hard it's a little bit easier yeah i understand that it makes sense linden in jamaica the the culture here for the high school championship is is is tremendous and i'm sure i'm sure you've heard you've heard about it but i've i've always heard that the intercal school's championship in granada is really really big and popular and and can you talk to us about can you talk to us about it and your memories of competing in the granadia intercal schools competition man let me tell you i i've seen i've seen the boys and girls champs and i might be biasing this but intercal is better i wasn't sure you're going to say that but i knew you had some good things to say about it so so continue man like just just watching the way that schools competed against each against each other and the rivalry and the competition like you you're talking about guys that are like 50 years old and 60 years old like when intercal comes around they still wear their their school uniform and so much pride i i think like the whole island is almost like it's coming together in a division if that if that makes any sense you know yeah it's you know and and it's one of those things where like the competition and the athletes the the way that the athletes compete for their school pride it's it's almost like the mini olympics because you don't get paid you don't get anything it's just literally for pride yes you know and it is to me is the purest form of competition and it's when it's a joy of being an athlete like no as a professional athlete you got to worry about performing you got to worry about doing all of this but like when you're in the intercal and boys and girls champ it's like it's the purest form of competition because it's just joy you know it's like it's just pure joy it's pure competing for your school and for and for the tie and for you know for the legacy of the people that passed on before you because because the guys that passed on before you they left a winning culture you want to continue with that winning culture so it's it's amazing well i i think i will i will try to make a pledge that at some point sports max will try to do some coverage of the granada intercal because i've heard about it for decades and i've heard about how big and popular it is and how among the entire country that you know it is it is something that that's really big so i just wanted you to um give an outline to our viewers just how big the granada intercal schools competition is can can you tell me having said that about what the building of the national stadium meant for for this meet because i think your national stadium was probably built in the late 1990s and and you hosted carifter games shortly after that probably 2000 but um compared to the venue that you would have used prior to your national stadium how much did having a brand new national stadium with the mondo track boost the kind of atmosphere and appetite for the event well um first of all i must give um coolest to the government to see in the the need to have a stadium that will help excel not just track and field but football yes um because i don't know if you guys know this i haven't destroyed our our stadium completely yes so um yeah so for a long time in granada there was no stadium um so we all of most of our sports meets was was done in grass and stuff like that and then you know government found the need to really like invest back into having us have a track that that's usable and accessible for for things like the intercal and now we're hosting carifter this year yes you know and and whatever comes in hosting carifter we're gonna we're gonna benefit from that tremendously i think the athletes in granada are excited the coaches are excited the people are excited i think granada is going to be a great host for for for the for the carifter games i i know for a fact that the whole country is excited for for for the carifter and to be able to have the honor to to be able to host the carifter games yeah well it's as usual got to be the Easter weekend linda um sports match will be there with live coverage maybe you could make a a trip to i know you're busy and training hard and so on but uh it would be great to have linda and victor at home for the carifter games coming up this Easter weekend and uh you can be a be a part of our our coverage and you know just um bring the kind of international flair that you represent to our viewers to our viewers at the carifter games but we are as you are looking forward to it and we know granada having hosted the carifter games before will be great hosts as usual and we're looking forward to that but linda and thanks for talking to us we hope your training continues to go well and uh we hope that things work well for you in paris this year thanks man yeah thank you for being cast so let's see okay yeah that's that's great i i wish you would and you will be thanks we'll be back with more on the sports match soon after this