Jeter sprints like a jet

Dinesh Weerawansa reporting from South Korea

American Carmelita Jeter had a sensational women’s 100m dash to emerge the fastest woman at the 13th IAAF World Championships at the Daegue Stadium last night, Minutes after crossing the finish line to take the women’s 100m gold medal, Jeter said she could not believe her eyes when she stared at the Daegu Stadium giant screen as the new world championship sprint queen.

Even then, the American lass had a patient four year wait to reach the pinnacle of her career, having previously finished third in two consecutive World Championship 100m finals.

The 31-year-old Californian woman sprinter from Gardena, kneeled on the track and cried tears of joy. She later had the customary victory lap, with the American flag draped across her shoulders. Her path to crowning glory was not a rosy one but she powered the last 50m like a supersonic jet to go pass the leading pair of Jamaican sprinters, Shelly Ann Fraser-Pryce who led from the start and very nearly stole the race, and veteran sprint queen Veronica Campbell-Brown. Fraser-Pryce would be edged out of the medals by Kelly-Anne Baptiste of Trinidad and Tobago. Indeed it was one of the more exciting dashes in some time.

“I didn’t know that I had won the gold until the camera was on me because it was so close, Then, when the official results were displayed, I said oh, my gosh, I did it. I have been dreaming of this since 2009 when I got the bronze in Berlin.”

As she came out of the track after the victory lap, Jeter shared her joy with her agent, Chris Layne, the man whom she credits most with her success and coach John Smith, hugging and crying.

“I can’t even celebrate now because I have the 200m still,” she finally said. “That was my celebration just now when my coach and I were hugging and crying. John Smith is a great coach.

“I am very proud of my training partner Richardson. He came to practice with me every day. We would have these sessions where we would say ‘What is John Smith doing? What are we doing? We don’t need to be doing this.’ Then we would come back again the next day. We both had our battles so I am so proud of him. Our chemistry and hard work paid off,”she added.

Discipline, hard work and dedication have been the key to success of Jeter who has a reputation for being extremely disciplined allowing nothing to detract from her athletic pursuits. “She goes to bed at 8 in the night and wakes gets up by six in the morning,” said Layne. “She doesn’t goof off during the season like so many others do. She eats, sleeps, breathes this job. She looks at this as her job.”

Layne claims that if she has outside interests he doesn’t know about them claiming she has no time for anything but being a professional athlete. Even so, there were the usual nervous jitters as she warmed up for the final.

“You know, I have a great coach,” she proudly said with usual broad smile. “He stopped me before I went in the call room and he gave me a speech. I knew when he gave me that speech I knew I was ready. It was a different night, he basically just said I have been working too hard to throw it away and I am a warrior and have got to go out there and fight for it because nobody is going to give it to me,”the new World Championship sprint queen explained her pre-event preparations. Jeter was a student at the University at California State Dominguez from 2003 - 2007 before teaming up with Smith. Her coach says Jeter is a disciplined athlete who is careful about unnecessary spending and owns her own home in Los Angeles.

“I was running for everybody, I have so many people who have so much support for me, so much love for me. I didn’t want to let them down,” she said. Yet, she has to put her victory celebration on hold as she focuses on the women’s 200m.

The United States bagged another gold in the men’s 110m hurdles as former Olympic champion Liu Xiang had to be satisfied with the silver medal. Even then, American Jason Richardson had some anxious moments and was kept in suspension until the official result was declared.

Pandemonium in the mixed zone where the athlete interviews take place immediately after a competition, is a common thing but last night after the men’s 110m hurdles final there was an extra special mayhem as the news swept through the hall that the gold medalist in waiting, Dayron Robles of Cuba, had been disqualified for impeding China Xiang. That upgraded the position of Richardson to be crowned the World champion. Initially, he was not aware of it because he was surrounded by media men discussing about his silver medal.

His emotions changed in a flash, once he had learned of his promotion. Overcome by the emotion, this larger than life Texan who wears his heart on his sleeve, bowed his head and struggled to contain his emotions.

“It was all a bit of a whirlwind, It was always my goal to get gold, but I had to respect the position I was in and I was satisfied with the silver medal. I was happy and busy doing interviews so it took a while to sink in, but I got very excited when it did sink in,”he said. An appeal from the Cuban delegation over the disqualification of Robles, who even did a victory lap, was eventually turned down and it was nearly two hours later by midnight in Korea that Richardson was assured of the gold.

The golden feat in Daegu is a massive breakthrough year for Richardson.

Despite only finishing third in the US world championship trials, he went to Europe and made an immediate impression with his technique, displaying one of the fastest trail legs in the business.

- DAEGU, Tuesday.