ARE THINGS LOOKING BLEAK FOR VCB?

For a very long time Veronica Campbell Brown has been one of the world’s best sprinters. She is a two-time Olympic 200-metre gold medalist and sprint relay gold medalist. She is also a 100-metre and 200-metre world champion. The only global title she is yet to win is the 100-metre Olympic title but that seems like an increasingly long shot as the Olympic Games track and field begins in just over a week.

Coming off a world championship campaign where she won a silver medal in the 100 metres and gold, finally, in the 200-metres, VCB was expected to come into these Olympic Games to make a run at two goals that would immediately immortalize her as perhaps the greatest female sprinter of the modern era, times notwithstanding. Despite her success, VCB has not consistently run 200-metre times that could compare to a Merlene Ottey or even Juliet Cuthbert. Ottey’s 21.64s over the 200-metres is still a national record. VCB’s 21.74 puts her on par with Cuthbert. Ottey ran sub 22 on more than 20 occasions, while the 200-metre world champion has only dipped below the 22-second barrier on only four occasions. VCB’s 10.76s ranks her as the third fastest Jamaican woman, just behind Shelly Ann Fraser Pryce;s 10.70 and Ottey’s 10.74.

But as the Olympics edge ever closer VCB doesn’t have much to lean on in terms of times this year. Her 10.82s over the 100 metres ranks her third behind Fraser Pryce and the American powerhouse Carmelita Jeter. In the 200 metres, supposedly her pet event, she is much worse. VCB is ranked ninth in the world this year with her season best 22.38s failing to excite anyone going into London. If lanes were filled based on times this year VCB would not have a lane in the finals in London. Allyson Felix, 21.69, Sanya Richards Ross 22.09, Fraser Pryce 22.10, Jeter 22.11, Kimberlyn Duncan 22.19, Sherone Simpson 22.37, and others have all run faster.

In her last meet in Switzerland VCB laboured to a 22.70 clocking that was only good enough for second place. That’s almost a second slower than she ran to win gold in Beijing four years ago – 21.74, a time she will need to get close to if she is to have any hope of claiming any colour medal in London.

Since 2008 Veronica Campbell Brown has had a minimum of three coaches. I say minimum because no one seems to know for sure whether or not she has a coach now. If she does, it’s four. That’s a coach a year. That cant be good under any circumstance. Every coach I have spoken with about her struggles over the 200 metres this season came to the same conclusion – VCB has put on too much bulk. That has caused her lactic tolerance to decrease and as such she is unable to maintain her speed down the home stretch and as we have seen all season long, she has experienced a significant breakdown of form during the final 50 metres or so.

We saw it in Shanghai when Carmelita Jeter rushed down on her but slipped; we saw it at the national championships when Shelly Ann Fraser Pryce destroyed her and Sherone Simpson zipped by her late in the race. “There is no way Simpson is supposed to run by her like that,” said Claude Grant who coached VCB to a personal best 10.76s, a world indoor 60 metre title, and the 200-metre world title in 2011. “She is way too bulky, she lacks flexibility.”

Grant’s assessment was not some bitter remark coming from a coach that parted ways with the talented sprinter. In fact, it was a very candid assessment of what has gone wrong with the darling of Jamaica’s sprinting as she approaches what could be her final Olympic Games campaign.

Another coach who spoke on condition of anonymity suggested that VCB and her team have taken elements from the different coaches she has had over the past four years and tried to integrate them into her programme without a full understanding of what she was doing. The results that have manifested over the 200 metres have been more stark because of the longer distance involved.

All the coaches with whom I spoke came to a consensus that at her age VCB needed to have focused on technique and flexibility going into this campaign, it was what would have served her best. They suggest that she needs to spend as much time as possible before she begins to compete concentrating on drills that will help to ‘restore’ her technique, her efficient form that saw her become Olympic champion in 2008, if she is to have any shot in London.

As of right now however, things look bleak for VCB over the 200 metres. “The gym doesnt make you faster,” Grant concluded. “What we see of Veronica now, if she is going into the Olympics without a coach it’s not good.”