Posted: 9/18/2002 10:03:35 AM
DARREL BROWN started off running just to make his grandma happy. Instead, he has ended up not only making Trinidad and Tobago happy, but downright proud as well.
Unlike his grandmother, who didn’t live to see the 17-year-old score gold for T&T at the World Junior Championship in Jamaica, the pride of Trinis swelled tenfold as Brown, a La Horquetta youth, beat seven other finalists at the most envied race in the event, the men’s 100-metre final.
And he did it less than two hours after he had competed at the semis. It proves the undoubtedly mettle of the world-beating athlete. To add icing on the cake, Darrel’s 10.09 seconds win is a new meet record, and it is just three-hundredths of a second outside the world junior record.
The Jamaica win was certainly a long way from the day when, as a student at Tunapuna Boys RC, young Darrel returned home from school one day, complaining that his teacher wanted him to run in the school sports. With his grandmother’s urging, he took part, won, and has never looked back since. He has since been busy blazing tracks around the globe.
On Independence Day, the country awarded an absent Darrel the Humming Bird Silver medal, which adds to his already filled cache of such honours. Darrel, who’s still a couple years outside of the Olympics, early next year starts classes at Alabama University in the U.S., where he will also compete in college championships.
His aim now, however, is to keep on running and to improve on his time, which he hopes to take under 10 seconds. For now, that time is 9.99. He already has all his goals -- and his gold -- confidently lined up in his mind. Up next, he works harder at breaking the world junior record. To that end, he may just have to give up his 'eat-anything-goes diet' and work on a new regimen.
Before the race, it was all mom’s tasty cooking, with some weight training and workouts. Now he is bent on keeping fit and healthy, because he knows his work is well cut out for him. His immediate plan, he says brightly, is to go out of the juniors with a bang.
And don’t doubt the teenager when he makes a promise to himself. He had vowed, after placing second at the Port of Spain Championships, one of his earlier races, to never place second to the winner again.
The following year, he made good on that promise.
