After nearly three decades away from competitive sprinting, 52-year-old Lindsey Joseph achieved a remarkable career milestone over the weekend, claiming two bronze medals at the Trinidad and Tobago Association of Masters Athletics (TTAMA) Championships. Held between May 23 and 24 at the newly updated Hasely Crawford Stadium in Port of Spain, Trinidad & Tobago, the regional competition gave Joseph the chance to prove that competitive speed has no age limit.
Competing in the men’s 50-54 age division, Joseph crossed the finish line of the 100-meter dash in 12.07 seconds to secure third place. He repeated the feat in the 200-meter event, clocking 24.99 seconds to take another bronze. Garvin Farmer, a Trinidad and Tobago native two years Joseph’s junior, claimed gold in both sprint events.
Joseph’s journey back to the podium is one of persistence and second chances. He first picked up competitive athletics at 17, a later start than most elite runners. Just five years into training, he earned a spot as the only local runner selected for Saint Lucia’s pre-Olympic training squad ahead of the country’s historic debut at the 1996 Atlanta Games. Though he ultimately fell short of the qualifying standard and missed out on a spot in the final Olympic delegation, the experience confirmed what he had long suspected: he had the talent to compete at the highest levels. That promising trajectory came to an abrupt halt in 1997, when a devastating injury sidelined his athletic ambitions for more than two decades.
It was not until he hit his 40s that Joseph decided to reignite his passion for running. “After turning 40, I realised I was very unfit. I made a decision to focus on my health and fitness, so I resorted to what kept me fit in my 20s: athletic training,” Joseph explained. As he rebuilt his endurance and strength, he made a surprising discovery: he was still far faster than most people his age. That realization pushed him to seek out competitive opportunities for masters athletes.
Training for competitive sprinting as a masters athlete in Saint Lucia has not come without its challenges, Joseph notes. Access to consistent, safe training facilities is a persistent barrier: flat, even tracks free of hazards that could cause re-injury are hard to come by for local athletes. Most days, Joseph completes his sprint sessions on the flat asphalt roads that wind through the hills near his home in Fond Assau. When he gets the opportunity, he travels to Soufriere stadium to complete structured training on a proper track surface.
The local masters athletics community in Saint Lucia has faced additional setbacks in recent years. The country’s popular Senior Games competition was discontinued following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving local veteran athletes with almost no domestic competitive opportunities. But a growing wave of returning athletes, including veteran sprinter Bernard “Fox” Henry and elite marathon runners Ava Fevrier and Yvette Adair, has sparked a grassroots revival of the movement. Today, local masters athletes are working in partnership with the Saint Lucia Athletics Association to regain international affiliation and expand access to competition.
Joseph already has a history of advancing masters athletics in his home country. He was involved in planning the Saint Lucia Senior Games in 2018, and helped pull off a successful full competition in 2019. In 2023, he competed at the Barbados Senior Games, where he took gold in the 45-49 age division 100-meter dash with a blistering meet record of 11.86 seconds, along with a bronze in the 200-meter event.
For Joseph, his two bronze medals at the TTAMA Championships are just the first step in a larger mission: to inspire other veteran athletes in Saint Lucia to return to competition, and to build a formal, structured masters athletics association that can create long-term opportunities for athletes of all ages.