by J.R. Oppenheim
assistantsports@dailylobo.com
When former UNM track and field athlete Jarrin Solomon qualified for the 2012 Olympic Summer Games in London, he wasn’t just representing Trinidad and Tobago. He was following in his father’s footsteps.
Michael Solomon, himself a UNM alum and former track star, competed for Trinidad in the 1976 Olympics in Montreal and the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. He is still revered in his home nation; many fans call him “Skinny Man.”
Thirty-two years after Michael’s last Olympic appearance, Jarrin added to his family’s legacy. The younger Solomon earned a bronze medal for Trinidad competing in the 4×400-meter relay in London.
“When you first get done, it takes a couple of weeks for it to sink in,” said Jarrin, an Albuquerque native who holds dual citizenship with the United States and Trinidad.
Jarrin is the sixth UNM track and field athlete to qualify for the Olympics and the second to earn a medal. In addition to Jarrin and his father, Buster Charles in 1932, Dick Howard in 1960, Gary Kinder in 1988 and Simon Arkell in 1992 participated in the Olympics, according to GoLobos.com. Charles, Howard and Kinder competed for the United States, Arkell for Australia.
Howard is the only other medalist from UNM, taking bronze in the 400-meter hurdles.
A complete list of former UNM athletes to qualify for the Olympics could not be obtained.
Jarrin stopped by campus on Friday and received congratulations from UNM President Robert Frank.
“It’s great to have an Olympian as one of our alumni,” Frank said. “It’s a great credit to the University that someone can be one of the world’s best athletes. What else is there to say? That speaks for itself.”
During the Aug. 10 final, Trinidad finished third with a national-best time of 2 minutes, 59.4 seconds. Jarrin’s split time, or the time it took him to complete his leg of the race, was 43.9 seconds. Jarrin said he ran the fourth fastest split time of the games and only a handful of runners have times in the 43s.
The team from the Bahamas won the gold medal in 2:56.72, with the United States taking silver in 2:57.05.
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The Trinidad team qualified for the finals with the third-fastest preliminary time, 3:00.38. Jarrin recorded a split time of 44.61 in that race on Aug. 9.
For the 4×400, the top 16 relay teams were split into two preliminary heats. The top eight times qualified for the finals.
Ade Alleyne-Forte, Lalonde Gordon and Deon Lendore joined Jarrin on the Trinidad 4×400 team.
“When the gun went off, we were rolling,” Jarrin said. “Really, in my mind, I got going … and we go fast and it was nothing new to me to run with those guys, but it was a completely different atmosphere.”
He said he noticed the crowd noise at the Olympic stadium. He said he heard stories of athletes listening to the crowd noise from the stadium as they walked to the Olympic Village, which houses the games’ participants.
The crowd noise seemed to get louder in the final 100 meters, Jarrin said. He wasn’t sure if the crowd was closer to the track on that side of the venue or if a Great Britain runner had gained ground on him.
“I was just pumping home,” he said. “I headed off (after the exchange) and turned around. I was like, ‘They are just loud’ — they were that way in the prelim and the final. Whenever the leg was coming to the end they would just get louder and louder.”
Since his return home after the games, Jarrin said he received much praise for his performance. He said he recently moved into a new house and found a note that read “Congratulations. Welcome to the neighborhood.” His mom, Susie, also collected news clippings.
Jarrin lives and trains in the United States, but he returns to Trinidad from time to time. He has family in Trinidad and has made friends.
He plans to continue his training in preparation for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. Not only does he want to return to the Games in the 4×400 relay, he wants to qualify for the 400 meters, an individual race. He said he missed qualifying for the 400 in London by a hundredth of a second.
“I was disheartened, but it happened for a reason,” Jarrin said. “I might have been tired and maybe not as able to run as fast. It is what it is. That’s what I’m going to do for the next four years: run both, try to get the 400 and the 4×400. That’s my goal, to get an individual medal.”
