Sherwood Content residents want Bolt statue erected in community

Moments after Usain Bolt crashed the finish line to win a record third straight 100m Olympic title in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on Sunday evening, thus cementing his legendary status in world athletics, scores of people from his boyhood community of Sherwood Content in Trelawny began calls for a statue of their hero to be erected in his hometown instead of the proposed Falmouth site.

Bolt rewrote the record book, when he stormed to his trifecta of 100m, 200m and 4x100m titles at the Olympic Games, becoming the first in history to win all three over the span of three different Olympics.

The residents said they will not sit idly by and watch a previous proposal of a Bolt statue, which has been commissioned already to be erected on the confines of the Falmouth Cruise Ship Pier or anywhere other than in his hometown.

"That plan will not work; we are adamant that we will not allow that. Bolt belongs first and foremost to the people of Sherwood Content. We watched him as a likkle boy run on our streets and became world champion as a grown man," stated Owen Barrett.

"More interestingly, Bolt was not born in Falmouth. His navel string was cut right here in the lands of Sherwood Content," he added.

STATUE TO BE ERECTED

Falmouth Mayor Garth Wilkinson is on record as saying that a statue of the iconic man will be erected in Water Square, Falmouth.

The idea, according the Mayor Wilkinson was to have the statue being the major drawing card for tourists visiting the town.

"What sense would it make to place Bolt's statue inside the Pier?" asked another resident, Ainsley Pottinger.

"That would serve as motivation for our young children to have that great man's statue to look at and draw inspiration from if its placed here in Sherwood Content," said another, Oneil Case.

They point to another legendary Jamaican figure of Bob Marley, whose boyhood house in Nine Miles, Ocho Rios now serves as a museum, pulling hundreds of tourists and an effective means of economic activity for the locals.

"That is what we are demanding for Sherwood Content. Usain Bolt is a Jamaican of rare genius, born right here," he residents said.