For those who want national track and field teams picked by committee, lo and behold, the World Indoor Championships are perfect. Since Jamaica doesn’t conduct national indoor championships, selections must be based on some combination of form, availability and a little guesswork.
In 2008, Jamaica was ready to dislodge Kerron Stewart, Shelly-Ann Frazer or Sherone Simpson from the Olympic team to select Veronica Campbell-Brown, who had lost to them all in a sensational National Championship 100-metre final. Had that team been picked in the way we pick our World Indoor team, the change might have been made.
Done differently
No one is blaming the JAAA for not having an indoor national championship. After all, our weather eliminates the need for a domestic indoor circuit. It does, however, means that our indoor team selections are done differently.
Firstly, athletes must make themselves available. That isn’t automatic. Not all of them want to run indoors. Many of our stay-at-home heroes never have.
Some have and never want to again. Others, especially those who took US college scholarships, have indoor experience.
Ideally, once availability is confirmed, the selector should require some indication of current form. This year, we have two good candidates for the men’s 60 metres, Nesta Carter and Lerone Clarke.
Carter, 2008 Olympic relay gold medal winner, has run the outdoor 100 in 10.15 seconds and the indoor 60 in 6.54, while Clarke, a member of the 2009 World Championship 4×100 winning squad, has run 6.55 seconds for the indoor 60.
If Carter and Clarke were chasing one spot on the team, who would you choose? Suppose Dwight Thomas, World relay gold medallist, turns up with indoor 60-metre times under 6.60? With only two spots per nation available per event, who would you choose?
Fast starters
What if Mario Forsythe or young Dexter Lee improves from their recent times of 6.64 and 6.66?
Should the selector choose Clarke and Carter who are known fast starters? Or will someone remember that slow starting Merlene Ottey was the first woman to break 7.00 seconds for the indoor short dash?
Speaking of ladies, VCB has made herself available and has begun to ready herself with some moderate races indoors on the US circuit. Should the selectors question her proven ability to be ready on the big day? Does she need to go under, say, 7.10 seconds before they ratify her selection?
The answers to those questions aren’t self-evident. One thing is certain. The Trials based selection system all but eliminates those questions when we move outdoors.
Especially in disciplines where Jamaica is ultra-competitive, the Trials mimics championship conditions and tests the athlete’s mettle in a crucible where mistakes are fatal.
‘First-past-the-post’
Under presidents Patrick Anderson and Howard Aris, the Jamaica Amateur Athletics Association has edged away from the hard and fast ‘first-three-past-the post’ methodology of the past. The Anderson administration guaranteed picks for the first two but reserved a selector’s choice for the third slot. The Aris administration shadows the top three with a form maintenance clause, which removes the luxury of rolling back the training log for a big peak in the Big Show.
Take your pick.
Fortunately, there has never been an indication that the ‘selection-by-committee’ lobby will control the process. More over, no one has ever challenged the Trials as a key selection tool.
Pre-selection
Imagine Jamaica picking its team to the 2011 World (outdoor) Championships by committee and with no Trials. Some countries actually do it that way.
They survive with cocktails of pre-selection for proven champions and specific deadlines for favoured or injured athletes to prove competitive fitness.
Every method has some risk but there is no need for change here. The Jamaican method – selection by Trial – has produced too much success for us to meddle with it.
Hubert Lawrence first attended a National Championship in 1980.
INSIDE THE STOPWATCH – Is VCB the best sprinter of all time?
In the 2008 Olympics, Veronica Campbell-Brown became only the second woman to defend an Olympic 200 metre title. That victory and second place in the 200 at the 2009 World Championships made her the most successful female sprinter of the decade. It makes you wonder. Is she the best of all time?
Perhaps we can dispose of East Germany’s Barbel Wockel, the first woman to win the Olympic 200 metres twice since it is common knowledge that she benefitted from state sponsored drug enhancement. That leaves VCB alone at the top of Olympic 200 metre history. Her Bejing time of 21.74 seconds is the 3rd fastest ever in the Olympics after Flojo and Grace Jackson. In any case, she is far better than Wockel ever was in the 100.
Is she better than American Allyson Felix? She is faster and is 2-0 in the Olympics, but 0-3 in the Worlds. No one, man or woman, has won 3 world titles over 200 metres … no one but Felix. However, VCB is miles better than Felix in the 100.
Flojo won the 1988 Olympics, after silver in 1984 and silver in the 1987 Worlds and is much faster, 21.34 to 21.74 seconds. The Worlds were then every four years so we can’t hold that against the sprinters of the pre-1991 period. However, VCB won two Olympics to Flojo’s 1.
In the 100, VCB is way down the line. Americans Wyomia Tyus and Gail Devers won the Olympic Games twice and Devers is faster on PB and Evelyn Ashford, the 1984 winner, is still faster after all these years, 10.76 seconds to VCB’s 10.85. Among Jamaicans, VCB trails Shelly-Ann Frazier on medals - WC gold, OG bronze to double gold for the little dynamo. On personal bests, she is slower than contemporaries Frazier, Kerron Stewart and Sherone Simpson, Merlene Ottey and Juliet Cuthbert who did their speeding throughout the nineteen-eighties and nineteen-nineties.
Among VCB’s international 100 metre contemporaries, Lauryn Williams of the USA beat VCB in Athens and Helsinki and narrowly lost to VCB in Osaka. She too must be considered to be ahead of VCB in the 100.
Taking the 100 and 200 together, Gwen Torrence comes into the picture. 1988 Olympic champ at 200 and 1995 World Champ at 100, Torrence is faster on PB in both events - 10.82 /21.72. She has Olympic bronze in the 100 in 1992 and 1996 as well as 100 and 200 metre silvers behind Germany’s Katrin Krabbe in the 1991 Worlds and behind Ottey in the 200 in 1993. A lane violation rubbed out her 1995 ‘win’.
That brings us to Ottey. Twice world champ at 200, with the fastest non-Flojo/Marion Jones personal best at 21.64 and silver, 2 bronzes and fourth, she is as good as VCB in the 200. In the 100, she has 1996 silver, 1984 & 2000 bronze in the Olympics. In the Worlds, she lacks gold but has 1993 and 1995 silver and 1987 and 1991 bronze.
The other contender is Polish legend Irena Szewinska, who has an Olympic 100 bronze and gold, silver and bronze at 200. Don’t forget that Ashford was at her best in an era before the World Championships and twice won the World Cup 200 metres, which was the big non-Olympic global meet of the day. In the 1979 World Cup, Ashford set her 200 metre personal best of 21.83 seconds.
We can safely conclude that VCB is among the very best of all time at 200. In the 100, VCB’s local and overseas contemporaries, Ottey’s consistent speed and double Olympic champions Devers and Tyus push her down the line. Taking both events together, Torrence, VCB and Ottey stand apart, with Ashford not far off. VCB might make ground on those other two luminaries since her career isn’t over.
For all I know, great things are ahead for her. Her recent World Indoor 60 metre victory, in 7 seconds flat no less, is a great indicator for the future. It’s just as well. For VCB to become the best sprinter of all time, she has to do a little bit more, especially in the 100 and on the clock.
HUBERT LAWRENCE has covered local and international track and field since 1987.
Well said, Hubert but a point of note is the great impact that Merlene Ottey has done for track and field in this country. I am eternally greatful for her tremendous strength of character and her simplistic way in which she tries to advance this little country of ours. May Merlene’s name be forever praised by all the well wishers of true champions. Merlene for life.