THE legendary Merlene Ottey — one of the greatest female sprinters of all time — will be honoured at the third staging of the Vere Technical Ben Francis Invitational to be held on Saturday, February 16, 2013 on the school grounds.

Ottey, 52, has accepted the nomination from her alma mater Vere Technical to be this year’s honoree and should be in Jamaica from February 11 through to the 19th for a series of events planned by the Richard Bowen-led Lariba Marketing and Consultants Limited.

“As you know Vere Technical High School is the home of world champions and Olympians and the last time they were 49, now they are up to 53, which in fact is a world record, which has been ratified by the JAAA and also impressed by the IAAF,” Bowen told the Jamaica Observer.

“It is my pleasure to announce that the honoree this year is our queen Merlene Ottey. We will also be doing a slew of events, as Ottey has agreed to impart not only her icon aura, but her knowledge of track and field in several areas,” he added.

Ottey, who lives and now competes for Slovenia, will meet with the Vere Technical student body and will be addressing the school track and field team.

Plans are afoot with the government of Jamaica for a VIP reception of Ottey upon her arrival in the country.

“We want to give her a nice welcome home and protocol dictates that we reach out to all the other stakeholders which is Jamaica. We will be advising the JAAA, the JOA and the Government to play a part in her return home to Vere,” said Bowen.

“Miss Ottey has served the country and the world with distinction, so much so that she is immortalised with a statue in front of the National Stadium, and that speaks for itself. We only have four statues there and we have so many greats,” said Bowen.

Vere Technical from Clarendon have produced some of Jamaica’s most talented athletes in Veronica Campbell-Brown, Aleen Bailey, Michael McDonald and 2012 honoree Deon Hemmings-McCatty, who was the first Jamaican woman to win an Olympic gold in the 400m hurdles at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.

Promising sprinter Jura Levy and Patricia Hall were two of the latest Vere students that became Olympians this year.

Efforts are currently being made to get confirmation in honouring Ansel Styles, the first Vere male Olympian.

Ottey, who started representing Jamaica at the age of 14, won her first Olympic medal at 20 in Moscow and her last at age 40 in Sydney in 2000 and remarkably at 50 years old, she anchored the Slovenian 4x100m relay team at the European Athletics Championships in 2010. Even more astonishing, Ottey at 52 is still capable of running the 100m in 11.80 seconds or less.

The outstanding athlete, who has run the 100m below 11 seconds for a record 65 times, has won nine Olympic medals, the most by any woman in track and field history, and 14 World Championships medals, also the most by any woman. What has made her so great is her longevity, which realised 29 medals at the highest level, and 46 overall.

Merlene was the first woman to run the 60m indoors in less than seven seconds. She holds what many regard as the greatest record in track and field athletics of 21.87 seconds for the indoor 200m.

It is reported that no other woman has run that distance indoors under 22 seconds. A measure of the significance of that achievement is that the 200m indoors is an exceedingly difficult course, being virtually one whole bend of tight corners with very little straightaway.

Among the current crop of athletes, only three have run the less arduous 200m outdoors below 22 seconds, and this for a combined total of eight times, albeit, they are not yet at the end of their careers.

Merlene has run the 200m outdoors below 22 seconds for a record 18 times. It is no surprise that Ottey was Jamaica’s Sportswoman of the Year for a record 15 times.