The Jamaica Star :: Sport :: Williams has sights set on World Juniors

BY RAYMOND GRAHAM, Freelance Writer

Shermaine Williams ... won 100m hurdles silver at the World Youth Championships last year. - Anthony Foster

DESPITE this year being an Olympic year and the senior athletes getting most of the focus, it is also an important year for our junior athletes as, come this July, Jamaica is set to make a big mark at the World Junior Track and Field Athletics Championships which will be held in Bydgoscyz, Poland.

It was at the World Youth Championships in 1999 in Poland where Veronica Campbell made her mark and, come this summer, we could see another Jamaican athlete making her launch at the same venue.

Last Saturday at the North Carolina A&T Murray Neely Invitational Track and Field Meet, former Alpha Academy athlete Shermaine Williams, who now competes for Johnson C. Smith, a Division II University, produced a career best 13.48 seconds to finish third in the women's 100 metres hurdles.

Williams, who finished sixth and second at the last two World Youth Championships, and who was last year's Carifta Under-20 champion in the hurdles, will be one of Jamaica's leading gold medal hopes in Poland.

Showing loyalty to her high school coach Lennox Graham, Williams, who left Jamaica in January to join Graham, the new coach at Johnson C. Smith, was eligible for the High School Championships last month and also would have qualified for next year's meet as well.

Foregoing her high school eligibility, the 18 year-old Williams has settled down quite well in her new environment.

"When Williams just arrived she was a bit home sick but now she has fully adapted," said Graham.

100 metres hurdles

Williams, only the second Jamaican junior to have defeated former St Jago star Natasha Ruddock in the 100 metres hurdles when she did so at the Carifta Games in record time in the Under-20 event last year, got her sternest test to date at the Murray Neely Invitational meet.

After dominating the indoor competition in the 60 metres hurdles where she won the National Championship in March, she has made two outdoor appearances so far this season. At the Raleigh Meet in North Carolina, a week ago, she posted 13.91 in the heats before doing 13.87 seconds to finish second in the final, just being edged out as the winner did 13.86 seconds.

Competing under unfavourable conditions last Saturday with heavy rains and a soggy track, Williams came face-to-face with the University of Virginia Techinal top-two hurdlers, Queen Harrison and Virginia Johnsonville. Harrison was third at the Division 1 Championships last month in the 60 metres hurdles.

Running with guts and determination, Williams was neck and neck with both hurdlers for the first six hurdles before they used their experience to move away in the end. Harrison won in 12.92 seconds with her teammate finishing second in 13.21 seconds as Williams, who qualified for the final with 13.68 seconds, recorded her personal best of 13.48 seconds for third, bettering her previous best of 13.51 seconds done at Carifta last year.

"I am very happy with my time but I think I have a lot to work on, especially with my hands and my trail leg," said a very shy Williams.

After seeing his other charge, Leford Green, posting a personal best the previous week, Graham was naturally elated with Williams' new personal best.

"Shermaine has adopted well from indoors to outdoors and I am very happy because she was right there in the early stages as coming out of the indoors I expected this," said Graham. "She is right where she should be as the target for her is the World Junior Championships and I have not yet started to work on her endurance as yet'," Graham added.

"Based on the four times she has competed outdoors so far, she has improved on every occasion and I expect this to continue."