There is no doubt that Trinidad & Tobago's Man Of The Moment at the recent World Youth (under 18) Championships in Debrecen, Hungary, was 16 year old Darrel Brown, whose 10.24 seconds record-breaking victory in the under-18 100 metres event has catapulted him into the limelight.
But it was Newsday's backpage picture of Brown and 17 year old, Dion Rodriguez, who placed third in the 200m final, proudly displaying their medals for our photographer Azlan Mohammed, which reminded of the bronze medalist.
And while Brown is now in Edmonton teaming up with Ato Boldon, Jacey Harper and another teenager Marc Burns for the 4 x 100 m relay at the World Outdoor Track and Field Championships, I caught up with Rodriguez last Tuesday afternoon, quietly carrying on with his routine six-day week training on the stadium's Mondo track under the watchful eye of one of his coaches, Dr Ian Hypolite, the other is Edwin Skinner.
Dion has been running from his first year at Western Boys Primary School "just for fun, but it has always been sports whether football or cricket." And has been in winner's row from that very early age in the National Primary School and Rotary Games competitions, and as well his school's Victor Ludorum title. Entering Belmont Secondary in Form 1, he played more football and basketball as the stadium's Mondo was being resurfaced. However, in 1997 he won the Palo Seco Games 100 metres in record time, but dislocated his left hip bone that same year and had to be out for a whole year. After a series of injuries which kept him out of competition, he placed fourth in the 2000 Carifta Under 17 100 metres race in Grenada and was the anchor for the 4 x 100 relay team which broke the Carifta record. In that same year Dion was second to Brown in the 100 metre and in the 200 metre at the Central American and Caribbean Games in Puerto Rico, and also again anchored the 4x100 relay team to a record breaking time.
A member of Memphis Pioneers, Dion's off season training consists of "plenty Chancellor Hills, savannahs, sand tracks, long runs and flat leg running/jogging, with speed work when the season starts in March." Now preparing for the Pan American Juniors in October in Argentina, "with hardly any competitive meets to really test us, I have to do like time trials to see how much progress I am making from now until October." His main competitors, Brown and Burns, members of Phoenix and Rebirth, are the competition "from the starting line to the finish, during that time business is business, after the finish we are friends again."
Dion expectantly waits on the CXC results with a view to doing his A level exams at Trinity College "in anything with business, maybe Econ, Principles of Business and Management of Business" but is very aware of how costly it will be transport-wise for his parents, Nolan, a retired Superintendent of Police and Evril, an Admin Officer II in the Ministry of Information. "It already costs getting to and from the Stadium with an additional cost for the gym a very important part of the training. as since getting over the injury I must get back to weight training."
He keeps all ten fingers crossed hoping for an atheletic scholarship to the United States after he sits the S.A.T. exams next year and diligently carries on with training, while overcoming his injuries and getting back to where he was at before, for Argentina and other overseas competitions which include the World Junior Under 20's in Jamaica next year, Central American and Caribbean, Carifta and the Commonwealth Games. And is firm that he must make the 2004 Olympics to run in a flat event with particular emphasis on running his favourite the 200 metre against Darrell and Mark. Wouldn't three Trinis on the medal podium be great?
Dion's confidence about the scholarship and running comes from having very supportive parents and his favourite person, Grandma Louise Rodriguez, who says "you must not talk, do it then you can talk, do not talk then do it." He has also learnt this from his mentor Michael Johnson, who hardly said anything when he came up against Maurice Greene except "when we go down to the track we will see who is the boss. I admire that bout him, he did not like to speak too much about the track, just liked to do it."
He sees himself as "a shy person" and this earned him the name "psycho boy" throughout the six schools in the Belmont area as "I never go out to speak to people, if they speak to me I will answer and straight to the point, I do not like to beat around the bush, I am a really, really shy person." Hence the reason the lack of publicity on his return from Hungary did not bother him "I was happy for Darrel. I look at it this way, if I get attention I get the attention. If I get or do not get exposure, attention or publicity, it really does not affect me that much, I do not like being the centre of attention."
A Roman Catholic who attends Mass every Sunday, Dion says "there is no special girlfriend only a close, close friend." In Trincity, where he lives, with his parents and two older brothers, he is "surrounded by good influences as everybody who I talk to and hang around with is older than me, I am the youngest person as most of my friends are already looking at good jobs. Trincity is known to produce very good athletes and footballers like Stern John, David Nakhid and Marvin Faustin."
And Dion's dream "to bring back an International Gold Medal in an individual race, I have already brought back a gold relay medal."