By Alricardo Gallimore, Trackalerts.com Writer
“The moment I step on the track I want to win. I always want to achieve more, I always keep pushing myself. That’s always been my attitude. I never believe in giving up, I am ready to run through pain”, these were the words uttered by one of Jamaica’s most decorated female sprinters, Veronica Campbell-Brown.
Campbell-Brown was speaking at the Timeout session at the Doha GOALS Forum at the Aspire Zone along with guest Kenyan born, Denmark middle Distance runner Wilson Kipketer Tuesday night. Prompted by the host Trinidad and Tobago’s Ato Boldon about her longevity in Track and Field, Campbell Brown stressed on the fact that she was “born to run”.
Running has been a part of her life from a tender age. Her illustrious career has landed her multiple accolades which includes but are not limited to, 7 times Olympic medalist, 9 times World Championship medalist, 5 times Commonwealth Games medalist, 2 times World indoor champion and the list goes on. Veronica Campbell-Brown has a drive to succeed, and is determined to achieve all the goals she sets for herself. Inspite of the fact that she was out from Track & Field for a short period of time, she never allowed that to affect her goals.
She quickly placed that disappointment behind her, and with her level of resilience and flexibility, she was able to get back on track with her athletics career. Having been granted her freedom to run again, since this year Campbell-Brown was able to cop the diamond league trophy in the 100m, made the 60m indoor finals, win a silver medal at the Commonwealth Games in the 100m and finished as the fastest Jamaican in the 100m with a time of 10:86 secs.
Campbell-Brown made mention of the fact that had she not been in Track and Field, she would have been in the field of Education. However, her parents lack the funds needed to gain a solid education and so Track and Field was an avenue to acquire that education, an education that would have being denied had it not been for track and field. She gave credit to God almighty for giving her a body to sprint which gave her the opportunity to be where she is at right now, that is a successful track and field athlete.
And so in answering Ato Boldon’s question, she accredited her longevity to various aspects of her live which all worked together to enable her to be the successful athlete that she is today. With the World Championship being next year in Beijing China, Veronica Campbell-Brown hopes to once more achieve great success at these games. She also hopes to sign off and hang up her spikes on a high by lighting up the Rio games in 2016. I wish her continued success on those endeavors and hope she achieve all her desired goals.
