Callender returns for good training and Jamaican food

KINGSTON—In the last few years, several top tier sprinters from across the world came to train in Jamaica, not only because of track & field’s icons Usain Bolt, Asafa Powell, Yohan Blake and Shelly-Ann Fraser Pryce’s success, but also because the country possesses some of the best coaches in the world, among them, Stephen Francis and Glen Mills. However, T&T’s Olympic sprint relay silver medalist Emmanuel Callender doesn’t fall into that category, especially since he left Mills’ group two years ago. It’s the Jamaican food and the friends he developed here, which brought him back to Kingston. “I have a lot of friends here training at Swept track Club”, he said, “and I have world class company to work with. As for Trinidad, I would not have enough training partners to train with, so I come out here for the good training, the good weather, good food and all that good stuff,” he explained. According to the Pan American Games 100m bronze medalist and two-time CAC champion, the plan is to do half his season here and half back home.

 

He, like every other athlete, is preparing for the London Olympics and was quick to make it clear he is not going there for anything less than gold. If things go to plan, this will be T&T’s second Gold medal in Olympic history—the first coming from Hasely Crawford’s triumph over Jamaica’s Donald Quarrie in 1976. “My aim right now is to win the Olympic Games in the 100m,” he said, after opening his season in the 400m at Saturday’s Queens/Grace Jackson Invitational in Jamaica. “I am using the 400m as part of my training to get stronger endurance-wise for the 200m and for my top end speed in the last 40m of the 100m” he added. After that race, despite laying on the ground for several minutes, even while talking to TrackAlerts.com, he said “I feel great.” He continued: “Normally the way I run the 400m is to run the first 300m’s extremely hard; but today my plan was different. I just tried to go out and hold a pace, like a quarter miler normally does and then kick at the end,” he said while adding “as you can see I held my form for the majority of the race, but was not pleased with the time.”

 

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