Doris’ golden dream comes to fruition

Aliann Pompey did it in 2002 in England, now Troy Doris has followed suit. Commonwealth Games gold has always proven to be elusive, but Doris broke a 16-year drought by copping the top podium spot in the Men’s Triple Jump in Gold Coast, Australia.

With a leap of 16.88m, USA-based Doris became the first field event athlete to win gold at the Games for Guyana.

“It’s amazing you know; it’s something that I literally worked for and thought of every single day for the past six to eight months, just the training. So it means a lot have the gold medal in my hand, something that I have literally dreamt of; to see all my hard work come to fruition, it’s just incredible,” Doris told News Room this week.

Doris was elated by the excitement the medal brought Guyana, noting that he feels connected to the people with their level of support.

“The energy is definitely high and people are buzzing and people are happy back in Guyana so I’m definitely getting to see that and thankfully social media is allowing me to have this connection with everyone and they are able to send me messages with positivity and words of encouragement for the future so the connection is definitely there and I think a lot of people do have my back and they are genuinely proud of me,” Doris highlighted.

Meanwhile, Doris noted that time is the only factor hampering him from competing on home soil, but shared that it is an occasion that is definitely on his agenda.

“Gold medal or not I have always wanted to compete in Guyana. It’s just very hard for me to compete in Guyana because the competitions in Guyana are at the same time as a lot of the major competitions in Europe and those competitions are very hard to get into and those are opportunities that you have to take as far as putting your name out there and your country’s name on the world stage but it’s definitely something I would consider for the future; competing in Guyana just noting that I can confirm because I don’t know my schedule but it’s on my to do list,” Doris mentioned.

The 29-year-old, who currently ranks sixth in the world in 2018 after his Gold Coast performance, shared that he is currently waiting on his manager to work out the kinks for the remainder of his season, but did note that his eyes are firmly set on meets such as the CAC, Pan American and of course the 2020 Olympics.