He won the CariFin Cross Country male championship trophy for the first time in 2003, not satisfied with just that one bit of success he added another trophy to his already growing collection in 2004. To show that he has the stuff that true champions are made of, he  strung out the field (group of runners) over the meandering golf course at Sevilla, making it three in a row in 2005.

Prior to CariFin 2003 Joel Bharat was knocking on the CariFin door of success for about seven years. When he started he was just an enthusiastic, committed runner who expressed a kind of passion for the sport that you could feel vibrating through him.

Any one who knows Joel would tell you, he loves to "talk" … talk about running and talk about races and talk about runners.

It wasn’t  long before his times started to improve,  placing higher in the Urban Challenge and CariFin Cross Country and also improving in other local races.

He started bragging and challenging  someone to beating them in a race, "Boy you cyar beat me boy"

Probably that is the kind of bravado, and confidence that it takes to surpass the competition and win when men are in a group.

Success in the Urban Challenge came first for Joel in 2000 when he won his first One Lap Savannah Race.

He kept training week in, week out and participating in other local races and building his confidence. He ran with a local club, Memphis Pioneers for a while and then found an international coach, from the Chipcorea Running Club who provided the kind of motivation, scientific training information and progressive ideas to fuel his drive to fulfill his burning desire to be a top runner.

His employer First Citizens Bank was very instrumental in giving him the support he needed at that stage to improve.

Say what you want about Joel Bharat, he has good business sense. He understands the value of having and maintaining a well structure resume. He understands the value of collecting all the newspaper clippings of himself and recording all of the websites that post his results or any form of information that could form part of his resume.

It wasn’t long before he caught the attention of some interesting sponsors who wanted to invest in him. He is organized, passionate, committed to the sport of running, articulate and had the level of confidence that makes you believe that he can accomplish anything he put his mind to.

So now Joel is enjoying international participation in  running events in several parts of the world.
Travelling and racing internationally was one of the things that attracted Joel to running as this gives him the opportunity to travel to see foreign countries, visit their cities  and observe the running techniques and styles of different training methods.

He represents Trinidad and Tobago internationally.

This should encourage other athletes after achieving some kind of reasonable success in running and racing locally.

At present Joel's position is much better than a lot of runners  who may have a more impressive resume than himself, because of his business acumen combined with his running savvy.

It is great to see someone who started running with CariFin over the years show such progress,  he is an excellent example to follow.

I was so excited to know what Joel was doing that I tried to talk to him, difficult as that may have been. (Guess he was online with his coach).

I caught up with Joel in between his work, family and training and asked him what events he participated in after winning CariFin Cross Country for the third consecutive time in 2005.

He said, after CariFin in May he participated in eight races, two local, six regional and international.

The breakdown are as follows:

Quite impressive in terms of the number of races he entered outside of Trinidad, experiencing for the first time weather conditions as cold as minus three degrees Celsius and performing quite creditably.

I enquired if he could give any indications as to what his early schedule of races for outside of Trinidad for 2006 was like.

He beamed enthusiastically, "I am preparing for Toronto Hamilton Games in March 30, 2006. There is a 30K and a 5K; I will be doing the 5K this race goes around The Bay in Toronto".

"On May 7, I will be in Quebec for the 8000 meters a night Games and the following day, the 8^th I will be doing a10, 000 meters.

 CariFin Cross Country is proud to be part of his formative years as a runner, and of what events and activities of this nature can do to harness and develop, the potential talents that may reside within a person.

Joel Bharat has enjoyed a wonderful year of racing after CariFin 2005, with six international races  entered and doing remarkable well.

Based on the kind of training he has embarked upon and his travel schedule his training team felt it wasn’t prudent to race at Sevilla in April.

The news is Joel Bharat three time winner of CariFin for 2003, 2004 and 2005 would not be going after the crown for another time to attempt to make it four in a row. He would be concentrating on training and racing in Canada.

Unfortunately, he would not join the ranks of the two runners who hold exclusive claims to winning CariFin for four straight years. They are Lander Rodney and Curtis Cox of COLFIRE.

A feat that would be difficult to repeat in this era.
Moreover Joel has made CariFin history, by his continued success he will be remembered as a son of the CariFin soil