WHY VCB’S REGRESSION COULD COST HER

Just a couple of weeks ago Veronica Campbell Brown won her second indoor world title, winning the 60-metre dash in a world-leading 7.01 seconds. It was her second fastest time ever, bettered only by her 7.00 run to win her first indoor title a couple years ago in Doha. It matters little that Carmelita Jeter was not in Istanbul, or that Laverne Jones-Frerette was disqualified in the semis, because VCB had already proven that she can beat them at this level, in this environment. Both women were favoured over VCB in Doha but that mattered little to the woman who is making a case for being considered perhaps the best female sprinter in history – not the fastest, just the best.

When Jamaica’s queen of the track arrives in Jamaica for the National Championships at the end of June, she does so knowing that only one global gold medal eludes her from having the full set.  In addition to her gold medals at the World Youth and World Junior Championships; VCB is the two-time Olympic 200-metre champion, the 2007 World 100-metre champion, and the 2011 World 200-metre champion. She has also won a gold medal at the Olympics in the sprint relay from the 2004 Games in Athens. The one individual gold medal that she has yet to win at the senior level is that Olympic 100-metre title. That gold medal is perhaps the hardest won ever to win for the Jamaican champion and it has very little to do with her talent and a lot more to do with the flaws in her technique.

The basic principle of the short sprint is to get from one point to the next in the shortest possible time but as simple as that sounds it is not quite that easy. That is one of the reasons why the start is so very important. I wont bore you with the mechanics of it all suffice to say that the athlete who manages to be as linear as possible going forward is most likely to get an advantage at the start of the 100 metres. Unfortunately, that has not been the case with Veronica. She tends to emerge from the starting blocks going more sideways than forward, and it has cost her many times in the past. Had she been a better starter VCB may well have been a three-time 100 metre champion and going for her third Olympic 100-metre title but in all of those races she has had to come from behind and ran out of real estate. In those races the people who beat her, were either of equal speed or a speed close enough to hold her off long enough. This becomes clear when you consider than in 2007 when VCB won her world 100m title, the winning time was 11.01. In the other instances when she lost the times have been sub-11.

In Istanbul it was VCB’s incredible acceleration and top speed that won her the title, but she will need more than that in London this summer. Jeter, Frazer-Pryce, Simpson or Stewart and perhaps Myers from the USA and others will be in the hunt and from all indications so far, all these ladies are in great health so the likelihood of there being a stacked field is very high. After she lost in Berlin in 2009, VCB left Lance Baumann in Florida and employed the services of Anthony Carpenter who changed her body position in the blocks allowing her to leave the blocks faster and going forward more efficiently. The adjustment allowed her to improve her PR from 10.85 to 10.78. Her work with Carl Grant the following year which also saw her improve on her start got her down to 10.76 in 2011.

She faltered in her start at the world championships in Daegu in part to Usain Bolt’s false start and a lapse in what she had learned from Carpenter and Grant, it was only her sheer speed that allowed her to grab a silver medal at the death.

If she hopes to go one better this year in London and win herself a full set of global titles, VCB needs to go back to the past to help her secure her golden future. She has three months.