With Jamaican track and field athletes set to begin their medal quest on Friday at the Olympic Games in Paris, national senior middle-distance runner Natoya Goule-Toppin is urging the public to show their support for the athletes instead of criticising them whenever they step out on the track.

Goule-Toppin, 33, will be competing at the Olympic Games for the third consecutive time for Jamaica.
As the national 800m champion, she emphasised the hard work and dedication that the athletes put in to compete for the country and asked fans to refrain from making negative comments about them in the media.

“All of you seeing us running on TV don’t see what we are putting in here. It’s a lot of work,” said Goule-Toppin. “So when you see us on the track running, don’t say anything before you ask questions, right? That is what I am telling you people. We are here working hard to represent Jamaica and ourselves, so you better cheer for us and stop criticising us the same way,” she added.

The experienced athlete, who finished eighth in the women’s 800m final at the last Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan, in 2021, will enter the event in Paris with a season’s best 1:56.83, achieved during the London Diamond League two weeks ago. This time makes her the fifth-fastest woman in the world over the distance this year, behind Great Britain’s Keely Hodgkinson, who is the global leader with a time of 1:54.61.

Goule-Toppin, a former Manchester High School standout, lamented that people should be careful about what they say about athletes on social media because negative comments could affect their performance on the track and in the field.

“We know that criticism is not going to go away, but I see some foolishness online a talk, it is not about myself, it is about the athletes. We are out here working hard because we are out here from seven o’clock in the morning,” she said.