VCB heads Ja’s team to World Indoors
KINGSTON, Jamaica (CMC) — Jamaica will send a squad of 16 athletes, headed by Veronica Campbell-Brown, to the World Indoor Championships from March 12 to 14.
In the absence of several elite athletes, the 27-year-old Campbell-Brown will lead the charge for the Jamaicans in the 60 metres dash in Doha, Qatar.
She headlined the group of Caribbean athletes that left their mark on last Friday’s New York University Fast Track Invitational, when she ran a personal season-best time of 7.14 seconds.
Three weeks before the World Indoor Championships, it was the third fastest time of this year’s indoor season at the Armoury Track & Field Centre.
But Campbell-Brown complained that she had hoped to finish faster than 7.1 secs, despite being pressed all the way to the line by compatriot Sherri-Ann Brooks, who has also made the squad.
The race marked Brooks’ return to the track, following a doping saga that lingered last year, and prevented her from running at the outdoor World Championships.
The matter was settled in the Court of Arbitration for Sports in Switzerland recently.
Nesta Carter, a gold medallist with the men’s 4x100m team at the Beijing Olympics, and Lerone Clarke, a member of the relay team in Berlin last year, will run in the men’s 60m dash.
The Jamaicans will also be represented in the 60m hurdles, with Dwight Thomas carrying the flag on the men’s side, and Vonette Dixon and Lacena Golding-Clarke on the women’s front.
Ricardo Chambers and Edino Steele will contest the men’s 400m with Sanjay Ayre and Lansford Davis to join them for the 4x400m.
Novlene Williams-Mills and Bobby-Gaye Wilkins will tackle the women’s 400m with Davita Prendergast and Clora Williams joining them for the 4x400m.
There is only one competitor in the field event, and she is Jovanee Jarrett, who will take part in the women’s long jump.