Fraser promises spectacular year
JAMAICA’S Olympic and World Championships 100 metres champion, Shelly-Ann Fraser, believes she will improve the national record of 10.73 seconds in 2010, after sorting out her technical flaws.
“The target is just to stay healthy and just to work on techniques and do exactly what my coach tells me to do,” Fraser told the Observer after walking away with the Jamaica Amateur Athletics Association’s (JAAA’s) Female Athlete of the Year award last Friday.
The 23-year-old sprinter who clocked 10.73secs to erase Merlene Ottey’s 13-year-old national mark of 10.74secs at the Berlin World Championships last summer, thinks she will improve her personal best, but refused to predict times.
“I prefer not to say, but I think 2010 will definitely be something spectacular. 2009 was good but 2010 will be even better,” Fraser said.
The Stephen Francis-coached athlete who acknowledged that American Carmelita Jeter stepped up the standard with her 10.64 clocking towards the end of the last season, says she expects other athletes to improve in 2010.
“Yes, Carmelita has definitely set the standard and I think that a lot of the female athletes are working towards the 10.6 barrier, but for me I’m not focusing on anybody per se, I’m just working on things that I need to do to improve because I’m the only one who can run my race, so I’m just working on me for now,” she said.
“I’m not looking at only Jeter, there are so many other athletes that are doing pretty good. You have Sherone (Simpson) who is coming back from injuries; you have Kerron (Stewart) and you have Veronica (Campbell-Brown) and you have tons of other athletes to worry about,” she said.
Only world record holder Americans Florence Griffith-Joyner with 10.49, Jeter with 10.64 and Marion Jones with 10.65 at altitude have run faster than Fraser, who is currently joint fourth fastest of all time, along with France’s Christine Arron.