Shafiqua says losing is not learning from the experience

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 800m and finished as the 4th.

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 role of 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 I 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 games 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. 

Inspiration from her Christian faith

“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.”

Nonetheless, Maloney had to deal with her nerves.

“It’s the Olympics. It’s my second time here. I  have sponsors. The whole country is looking at me. I was getting a little bit nervous,” Maloney said, adding that she drew strength from Deuteronomy 1:29-31.

Losing builds character

The athlete said that ahead of the heats, her coach told her she needed to be in the top three.

“I remember coming off that turn, and I think I was in like, fifth … And I shifted gears. The next thing I know, I was in third.”

Maloney noted that she was boxed in during the race.

“I don’t know how I always get boxed in, but one of the things I realised is that when you run, you’re gonna lose. You have to lose. It builds character, and you learn, if you learn something from the races that you lose, you never really lost.”

She noted that she lost in the two meets she contested in Europe before the Paris Olympics.

“I lost my 800 in Hengelo. I was boxed in, and I panicked, and I tried to come out of the box and just messed up my rhythm and everything.”

She said that when she was boxed in in Paris she remembered that Hengelo experience. 

“So I stayed patient and I figured something on the inside was gonna open up, and it did.”

Maloney said that in the semi-finals in Paris, there were 24 athletes and she had to be among the top two.

“I realised the girls that I would be running with, but I had that mentality. I don’t care what you ran before you come in here, when you step on this line, you better be ready to go. And again, I got boxed in. And I think, like 120 meters to go, I called on the Lord, because I was like, I don’t know what else was gonna happen. 

“And as soon as I did that, a path opened, and I felt like there was like a breeze, like pushing me down the street. If you look at the race you just see me just going by everybody. … I was in disbelief. I was just like, in those two races,  I was out there, like, ‘God really is with me out here.'”

She said that going into the finals, she again drew on Deuteronomy 1:29-31.

“And I just like, God didn’t bring me this far to leave me.”

Maloney said that in 2023, she did not have what she needed to get a massage but never got injured while training. 

“[I] was always able to go back into practice. I might be in pain, whatever the case is, but I was always able to go back into practice and do whatever I needed to do,” she said.

And so, during the finals, Maloney said she was thinking, “‘God didn’t carry me through all of that. He didn’t put me in a position to make the stand and bring me all the way to Paris to just leave me here. And so I had to trust that going into the finals.”

The medal was ‘right there every time’

She said she wished she had medalled, adding, “It was right there every time. 

“I don’t like looking at the race because I’m reminded of how close I was to getting a medal. But after the race, I laid on the ground in disbelief, like, ‘The medal was right there.’ And I know some told me to get up off the ground. I got up off the ground.”

During the Paris Olympics, Maloney responded to repeated questions from the media about her homelessness last year.

“Everybody had known my story by then. And every time I get done running, they want to know.”

She said it “hurt” talking about the experience because it had been a lot to go through.

“… nobody wants to be homeless, and going through all the things that I [had been] going through,” Maloney said, adding that she cried after each race and media reaction.

“I went to Coach and I cried. And he was like, ‘Why are you crying?’ Sometimes, it was tears of joy, and sometimes it was just like, ‘I’m tired of answering the same questions and just reliving that moment.’

“But in the finals, when I got up off the ground, and I went up to the media folks and they asked me about it again, it was the first time I felt peace and joy about the situation, because then I realised, if all that hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t have been where I was at that time, because I had to be homeless to meet the people that I had to meet, to get closer to God and just trust Him in the season and the storm that was coming up. 

“And so I think after the finals is when I really just took some time to appreciate how far I came and what I was able to achieve. And I didn’t come home with a gold medal, but, you know, I got God, and that’s all I need. And I’m definitely looking forward to 2028, to go get my medal that I missed out on. It’s on my mind. It is on my mind.”

Working towards LA28

Maloney said that before Los Angeles 2028 she has other meets, including the World Championships next year.

“So I’m taking it one day at a time, one year at a time, and just focusing on what’s next and right in front of me. I can’t be in 2024 thinking about 2028. I gotta do all the things that I gotta do now to make sure I get there, healthy and able to do what I have planned to do, and that is to go get my medal that I missed out on. 

“And it’s gonna take me continuing to, you know, believing in God and just trusting in the plans that he has for me. And hopefully, all my sponsors will still be there with me and just going through this journey with me. 

“And thank you guys, for everyone for welcoming me back, my family; happy to see my mom and my dad and … I feel the love and all the appreciation,” she said.