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**Historian** · June 20, 2009, 07:46 AM

The Irony of Anneisha McLaughlin

As I pointed out several years ago when I used to post on the track and field forum next door, Anneisha Mclaughlin’s life as a track and field promising star is particularly ironic! When one revisits the 2002 IAAF World Junior Championships, held in Kingston, the standout performance for Jamaica, along with young Usain Bolt’s 200-meter supremacy, was the girls’ 4x100-meter relay team which ran the second fastest junior time in history (43.40 seconds, an IAAF World Junior Championships record).

Looking at the four members of that amazing sprint relay team (Sherone Simpson on lead-off, Kerron Stewart on second leg, Anneisha McLaughlin on curve, and Simone Facey on anchor), Anneisha back then was unquestionably the most acclaimed and seemingly most promising of that amazing quartet!! There is no question about this!

Fast forward seven years and what do we have? Both Kerron and Sherone are international stars and Olympic Games medalists (Kerron with a silver and Sherone with a gold and a silver) while Simone is still a promising senior star who has already stamped her authority in the NCAA competitions!

And Anneisha? It all shows how unpredictable life can be, because after her dominance, starting with the 2002 Carifta games and the 2002 IAAF World Junior Championships, I fully expected that Anneisha would today have been Jamaica’s brightest star! But....?

**Karl** · June 20, 2009, 08:36 AM

Davita Prendergast may still be ('knocking') around?

**Islandman** · June 20, 2009, 08:37 AM

Historian how come your list is so 90s-dominated? I know you go a long way back to the dark days of the 70s and early 80s when we lost just about everybody except a handful.

Earl Laing, Marlon Pottinger, Ian Stapleton are a few schoolboys who come to mind from the early 80s. In the late 80s I remember some great 400m clashes between Thomas Mason, Carey Johnson on Camperdown and a youth from Georges whose name I think was Lyndale Patterson. Carey Johnson was one of the smoothest 400m runners I have seen, he would just glide down the backstretch with a style and grace similar to watching Michael Holding come off his long run (I know I am mixing sports here).

On the girls side, there were fewer competitive schoools but do you remember names like Fredrica Wright and Audrey Llewylyn-Hunter (I think) from Dinthill? Going back a bit further to the Jackie Pusey era, Vere had a girl named Maureen Gotshaulk (I am sure that spelling is wrong) who was as talented as any. Juliet Cuthbert had a schoolmate named Marcia Brown with whom she used to finish 1-2 in the sprints, with Cuthbert finishing second.

Young Merlene Ottey , then of Ruseas, was considered a second tier athlete compared to some of those girls. Then fortunately she went to Vere for her final year and Jamaican female sprinting has never been the same.

Ah, that was a nice trip down memory lane to my early days of being a T&F fan!

**Karl** · June 20, 2009, 09:05 AM

(Kerron with a silver and bronze) ...and both missed a 4 x 100M Gold and World & Olympic record when...ironic?...*Sherone and **Kerron contrived to end our Olympic 4 x 100M Women dreams!

Sherone's sin - Not keeping focus and putting the batton in Kerron's hand on the first try.

She cannot be blamed for Kerron's too early leaving!

Kerron's sins - i) Leaving too early (Misjudged Sherone's incoming speed - matters not why. Excited? Distracted by what was occuring around her or Sherone came in at a slower speed that 'practise programed in Keron's brain/reflex muscle memory & 'brain memory'

); ii) 'Losing head'/not thinking through what should be done after realising the baton was late to her hand -
The action that should have been taken - Slow...maintain balance and lane position....offer a steady hand to Sherone (may even mean taking hand down and doing one extra swing/'normal running arm action' before once again extending same for baton).

You are taught (discuss) that at 'high school' by the T&F coach...and it needs 'calm' to execute.

btw - Outgoing running: If the baton does not 'arrive on time', you do not know (exactly) where the incoming runner is in relation to you...so you are now aiming for a 'safe change' (legal transfer of baton). Makes for slower transfer of baton...but that 'safe change' keeps you in the race.

You just cannot turn around - upsets balance and thus loss of control of positioning in lane...leads to meandering around in lane and ***'crash' (forget baton, you shall 'crash'/'lick-up' of body - step pon, etc. - and or hands - outgoing runner and incoming runner)!

***personal experience plus viewing many sprint relay races where the outgoing runner looks back and loses balance and position in lane.

**Assasin** · June 20, 2009, 09:14 AM

yeah I remember Marcia brown from St.Thomas. Doreen Small from my hometown who beat Pusey at St.Mary's high and was big on the national radar.

**Historian** · June 20, 2009, 09:35 AM

My '90s dominated list

Originally posted by Islandman View Post

Historian how come your list is so 90s-dominated? I know you go a long way back to the dark days of the 70s and early 80s when we lost just about everybody except a handful.

Islandman, I enjoyed your post! Thanks for the run down memory lane, boss

!

I agree with you about the limitations of my post above, but I did not try to go beyond the past twenty years primarily because when I started that thread, I was a bit tired after sitting at this computer since the wee hours this morning reading online newspapers and writing e-mails.

I admittedly don’t know as much as I wish I did, but I probably should have made an effort to go back to even earlier period, like you suggested. As I type, for example, I’m recalling the name of someone from the early 1970s, before the Merlene Ottey era: I’m referring here to a wonderful lady, Debbie Byfield herself! If I’m not mistaken, former Jamaican track star Debbie is the mother of former USA sprinter Kelli White.

Thanks again for the trip down memory lane, boss! I’m sure that other readers here appreciate your list as much as I do

.

**Islandman** · June 20, 2009, 09:53 AM

Yep Doreen was good too, but Pusey was such a big star she overshadowed her.

Eastern Champs in those days was the school outing of the year for most of us that side of the island. At my school , Morant Bay, students would save up from thier lunch money all year to go . After the meet the bus stop in Harbor View on the way back home was a big deal! Talk bout country come to town, LOL!

I remember Titchfield would beat us up in football in the first term, and we would say, "allright wait till Eastern Champs " to get a little revenge.
Only a few fortunate ones like myself who had a father who was really into sports would go to Girls and Boys Champs.

**Historian** · June 20, 2009, 09:54 AM

Excellent Points, Karl, But....

Originally posted by Karl

Davita Prendergast may still be ('knocking') around?

Karl, thanks for making this point. I haven’t heard much about Davita Prendergast recently, and she might still be in action be like you stated. I sincerely hope she is.

Originally posted by Karl View Post

(Kerron with a silver and bronze) ...and both missed a 4 x 100M Gold and World & Olympic record when...ironic?...*Sherone and **Kerron contrived to end our Olympic 4 x 100M Women dreams!

Thanks also for the reminder about Kerron Stewart’s bronze medal (200-meter race at the Beijing Olympic Games). I somehow overlooked this medal won by Kerron, and it is certainly a commendable achievement after seven grueling rounds of sprinting (100 and 200-meters) before running in a finals that had other outstanding 200-meter sprinters.

I understand and fully agree with what you’re saying with regard to the rules of baton exchanges during relay running. The practical rules of exchange as you’ve outlined them in your post are, in my view, very correct!

However, the problem for ever-changing teams like those of Jamaica and the USA is that, unless one has a “well-oiled machine” like the Bahamas’ so-called Golden Girls during the period 1996-2000 in which they stamped their superiority on the world (the same five Bahamian ladies perfected their baton exchanges through five years of consistency, if one includes the year 1995 before Chandra Sturrup joined that team), then there will always be the danger of baton foul-ups. We have only to look at the history of the USA men’s 4x100-meter relay performances to see this!

At the risk of appearing biased, I definitely would not put any blame whatsoever for the Beijing relay fiasco on poor Sherone! She did what she had to do, and to use the word of NBC commentator Ato Boldon, it was “indiscipline” on the part of Kerron (by going out before she should have) why we lost our chance at a certain gold medal and maybe an Olympic Games women’s 4x100-meter relay world record!

Also, Jamaica’s performance is an eerily similar enactment of the chaos that happened between Marion Jones and Lauryn Williams at the 2004 Athens Olympics. Below is a comment on this I made in another thread on this forum:

At the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, the backstretch runner on the USA team, Marion Jones, failed to connect with curve runner Lauryn Williams, who had gone off too soon. Lead-off runner Angela Williams had given the favorites the USA (they went into the finals with the fastest qualifying time) a flying start. In Beijing four years later, the backstretch runner on the Jamaican team, Sherone Simpson, failed to connect with curve runner Kerron Stewart, who had gone off too soon. Lead-off runner Shelly-Ann Fraser had given the overwhelming favorite Jamaica a flying start.

In 2004 the members of the USA team hugged each other as they walked around and off the track. In 2008 the members of the Jamaica team hugged each other as they walked around and off the track.

Sounds like a perverse script, doesn’t it? That women’s 4x100-meter relay last year is, without question, eerily similar to what happened at the previous Olympic Games back in 2004.

**Islandman** · June 20, 2009, 09:55 AM

Yes Debbie is Kelli Whites mom. I have a good friend who knows the family well, she was really messed up by what happened with Kelli. One of those things where the mother is the last one to believe.

**Assasin** · June 20, 2009, 10:21 AM

yeah man eastern champs was big back in the days. Morant Bay was big, Mary's high was king. Nothing beat the cheering and riddim sections back in the days. The kids could actually play instruments.

One of my classmate Derrick Everette Miller ran the 800 at Boys champs and he was bumped, and spiked. He got up about 15 metres behind the field and ran them down for a close second.

He never competed at Boys again and years later I asked him why he said he decided he had to concentrate on school and never ran again. He is now a doctor. It was sad because he was good so I can imagine how many others did.

Do you remember Stevenson from York Castle and later KC who mash up all the class three records? I use to see him regularly in NY. That is another talent who a lot was expected of.

**Willi** · June 20, 2009, 03:45 PM

Nik Anderson is running in the NCAA. PBed last year, if I recall well. Princess Annie was on that Utech 4x400m relay that won at Penn.

The Robinson Twins are in the US at college.

Tesfa joined Racers, no? I think that was conditional on an operation to remove scar tissue.

Yhann Plummer? It has been a while,m but he SHOULD be in college.

**Willi** · June 20, 2009, 03:49 PM

Kerron never took a baton in her left hand before and you think it was wise to try a ting in the finals of the Oly Games???

VC on third, Kerron anchoring and WR smashed!

See how Bolt ran 3rd leg and what happened?

**Willi** · June 20, 2009, 03:50 PM

Christopher Thellwell from StGC. His class 2 hurdles record (HT) still stands.

**MdmeX** · June 20, 2009, 05:55 PM

Originally posted by Willi View Post

Kerron never took a baton in her left hand before and you think it was wise to try a ting in the finals of the Oly Games???

VC on third, Kerron anchoring and WR smashed!

See how Bolt ran 3rd leg and what happened?

Don't know if I buy that line that Kerron never took a baton in her left hand before.

At the World Youth Championship in 2002 in Kingston, Kerron ran the 2nd leg. Jamaica won Gold! Team was Simpson, Stewart, McLaughlan and Facey.

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