KINGSTOWN, St Vincent, CMC – Shafiqua Maloney, who created history by becoming the first Vincentian to advance to the finals of an Olympic event, said that while she did not medal, a loss is when one does not learn anything from the experience.
Maloney, who is based in Arkansas in the United States, returned to St. Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) on Wednesday, reuniting with her mother for the first time in eight years.
She told a welcoming ceremony organised by the government at Argyle International Airport about the pressures she felt during the Paris Olympics, as she carried the hopes of her country’s 110,000 residents and an even larger diaspora as the nation dreamt of its first Olympic medal.
Maloney entered the Paris games as the 27th fastest woman in the 800 metres and finished as the fourth.
As she ran in the finals in Paris, she was watched by thousands of Vincentians at a public screening of the race in her nation’s capital, Kingstown, and other parts of the country.
Maloney thanked her sponsors as well as Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves and his government, and everyone who turned out to welcome her home.
She spoke of the reliance on her Christian faith as she struggled to buy food and pay her rent in the United States on her way to Paris and during the Games there.
“I don’t have to worry about sharing the secret. The secret is out there for everyone. It’s God and he’s for everyone, so I ain’t gotta hold that secret to myself,” the 25-year-old athlete said during the ceremony.
She said that everyone knows her journey to Paris was not easy.
“But, eventually I got some help, and it made a difference mentally and physically and emotionally, for me to see that there were people here who cared about me and the journey and what I’m here trying to do for the country.”
Maloney shocked SVG when she spoke on Jamaica-based sports channel Sportsmax in February about her homelessness last year, her inability to pay her coach, and her struggles to buy food and supplements.
But even after those challenges were overcome by the response of corporate SVG and the government, she had to deal with the mental anxiety that comes with an athlete carrying the hopes and dreams of an entire nation.
“Paris was a little bit nerve-wracking. All year, I ran 1:58 indoors and outdoors I had only ran 1:59,” Maloney said.
She said that going into Paris, other athletes were running between 1:54 and 1:56 in the London Diamond League.
“I called my coach. I was like, ‘Coach, this 1:59 ain’t gonna cut it, because everybody out here running fast.’ He was like, ‘You just don’t worry about it.’ I was like, ‘Okay’,” Maloney recounted. Maloney said she arrived in Paris two weeks before the Olympics and was training hard.
“I’m an overachiever; I’m a perfectionist and when coach gives me times in practice, I want to hit my times and run even faster. And I’ve had a whole year of that, even without … the stuff that I needed.”
But when Maloney got to Paris, that overachievement was nowhere to be seen.
“And it came down to Paris, and I wasn’t making the times no more. And it wasn’t that I was out of shape. I didn’t know what was going on.”
She said her coach later explained to her that she had “loaded up and it was time to just back off”.
“So I was a little nervous. I’m not gonna lie. I was a little nervous, and I called him crying one night. I was like, ‘coach, I run next week, and things are not looking too hot.’”
Maloney said her coach reassured her that she was going to be okay.
“But leading up to Paris, I was in some shoes that they were giving me problems. My Achilles started hurting. I couldn’t walk on both of my feet. My hamstrings were falling apart. Everything was just going wrong.”
Maloney said that one day, she went to the polyclinic at the Olympic Village as she did not have a team doctor.
She wanted to get an MRI of her hamstrings. However, when she got to the polyclinic, it was noon and the next appointment was 5 p.m.
She went back to her room and at 4:30 p.m. was getting ready to go to the polyclinic when a Jamaican who was her teammate in Arkansas invited her to a Bible study.
“And I got to the point I hear, Bible study, I’m dropping everything, and I’m going,” she said, adding that she went to the Bible study intending to stay as long as she could before going to the polyclinic.
However, Maloney said she spent all of the time at the Bible study without going to the polyclinic.
“…But when I got back to my room, all my pain had gone, and that was the first time I realised that God was with me out there.”