Juliet Campbell – still in the race

“You’ve come a long way, baby!” For many years it was the slogan behind the “Virginia Slims” brand of cigarettes and for Juliet Campbell it’s a testament to what she has achieved rising from her humble beginnings.

The 34 year old 200-metre athlete recalls starting out as a Long Jumper at the then Donald Quarrie Secondary School in Harbour View after growing up in the eastern Kingston community of Rockfort and later moving further east to Shooter’s Hill.

Her earliest recollections of developing a love for track and field began at Harbour View Primary School when she used to compete in the egg and spoon and sack races.

“Up to last year my mom pulled this box out with all these blue ribbons and certificates that I won running even 800 metres and 1500. It was so funny because I remember nothing about those medals,” she said.

At 15, Campbell jumped at the opportunity to attend St. Jago High School and be a member of the track team after being recruited by Carl Marsh. Being the oldest of seven children of a single mother meant Campbell was left with the tough choice of having to leave home in Shooter’s Hill, move to Spanish Town and support herself. She did so by working at one of the Mother’s fast food restaurants.

“I can’t even remember the name of the street now, in the bakery, you have no idea how hot that place is in there,” she said. The move wasn’t an immediate one and Campbell recalls the days when she would be travelling at five o clock in the morning from Shooter’s Hill in St Andrew to St Jago in Spanish Town to head to school.

Campbell hasn’t forgotten the people who have helped her along the way as she even mentioned Lloyd Clarke, who now assists track and field coach Stephen Francis, as the person who used to follow her to the bus stop in those days to ensure that she got on to the bus and wouldn’t leave until it had driven off.

She credited Carl Marsh, as offering well needed support as well. He helped her to stop working in the bakery and found accommodation for her at a boarding house in Spanish Town and then to a farm he owned where he also mentored other future Jamaican track stars including Michelle Freeman.

Campbell said at that stage she missed her mother, and communication was at a minimum without the benefit of the telephone and many times news was relayed by other persons.

” I’ve never been away from my family before that, you know there was always someone there for me, next thing you know, I was there on my own, making decisions on my own and all this kind of stuff at 15 years old, but you know it worked out for the best,” she said.

Another who has been influential in her career is cricket and track and field historian Laurie Foster who stepped in after Carl Marsh died.

“So there were a few good men in my life,” she jokingly remarked. Like many Jamaican children she grew up without her biological father. She first met her father at age eight and didn’t see him again until she was 19 years old…. ” I never missed what I never had because I didn’t know what it was like to have a father around,” she said.

It was while she was at St Jago that Campbell switched speciality from the Long Jump to the 400 metres doing 55 seconds in her first race at age 16 and later on at college she switched speciality again to the 200 metres… ” I was never really taught how to run the race until here very recently, a few years ago when I decided I am going to run the 200 and no more 400. Believe me it’s a learning experience because it’s not a race you just get up and run… but it’s something I just absolutely love to run,” she said.

One of her most memorable moments since starting the 200 metres was winning the World Indoor Championships gold medal in the event in Lisbon, Portugal in 2001 “Regardless of what the title is every athlete wants an individual gold medal in a championship and to date that’s mine.” She also recalls the World Outdoor Championships in Seville, Spain of 1999 when she made the 200-metre final when all the odds were stacked against her, and what should have been her support group was filled with “Doubting Thomas’

“All these girls are 200-metre runners and everybody thinks oh you don’t stand a chance, but I did it,” she said.

Campbell now has a marketing job with sports gear manufacturers Puma International. She also monitors the distribution of the brand name sports gear and deals with the issuing of such. Her mentor Laurie Foster says that she has now become something of a mother in track and field.

But what is important to Campbell is her ability to endure.

” Just having to be around so long, you know I started track and field professionally in 1992 and I’m still here. I’m still one of the best sprinters in the world and they’re not like that anymore, they come and they last for a few years and they’re gone. I’ve been here and I’ll be here until I am ready to stop, because I’m still one of the best,” she said.

Dania Bogle is a Sports Journalist at KLAS Sports Radio.