By KHRISNA VIRGIL

Tribune Staff Reporter

kvirgil@tribunemedia.net

THE five relay runners who represented the Bahamas at the 2000 Sydney Olympic games were officially presented with bronze medals yesterday.

Thirteen years ago, Troy McIntosh, Avard Moncur, Chris Brown, Timothy Munnings and Carl Oliver ran to a fourth place finish in the 4x4 relay.

 But after US sprinter Antonio Pettigrew, now deceased,  was found guilty of a doping violation in 2008, his team was stripped of the gold medal, which put team Bahamas in third position.  

Speaking on behalf of the group, Moncur at a special luncheon to honour the men, paid tribute to the remaining members of the Sydney team. He said they had paved the way for generations of athletes.

“I look at this from the perspective of the three men who stood beside us in the beginning,” Moncur said, “the three men who were the trail blazers of this entire movement, the three men that were robbed of their legacy and their right to be called Olympic medallist.

“Today retribution has not only come for the Bahamas, but today retribution comes to them. In their season they created a movement that inspired a generation. Today the Bahamas can claim that because of them we are the defending Olympic champions because of their work today they are no longer just Olympians they are Olympic medalists that is a significant part of the legacy paved with blood sweat and tears.”

Prime Minister Perry Christie later pledged that the government would invest more resources into sports. He said the officials would sometime today sign a contract to begin work on a million dollar sporting contract at Abaco.