From left CRAWFORD and GATLIN - File photos
LeVaughn Flynn, Staff Reporter
THE DOUGLAS Forrest track meet set for this Saturday at the Stadium East track will have two Olympic champions keenly watching from the stands.
Gold medallist in the 100 metres at the Athens Olympics, Justin Gatlin, and 200 metre champ, Shawn Crawford arrived in the island yesterday for a one-week sojourn.
They were accompanied by their Jamaican-born coach, Trevor Graham, and the rest of the Sprint Capitol team, which includes Jamaican sprinters Dwight Thomas and Patrick Jarrett.
Graham, former coach of many-time Olympic champ Marion Jones and Tim Mont-gomery, accepted the offer for him and his athletes to attend the meet from organiser Brian Smith.
"I always wanted to come back home with my group ever since I was training Marion and Tim," Graham said at the Noman Manley International Airport yesterday.
Other members of Graham's team include 400 metre hurdle world record holder Kevin Young, Bahamian sprinter Chan-dra Sturrup, Lisa Barber, Marcus Brunson, Latoya Jenkins and Moushawmi Robinson.
TRAINING SESSIONS
While they are here for Saturday's meet, the Sprint Capitol team will have training sessions today, tomorrow, Friday and Monday at the National Stadium before leaving on Tuesday.
Gatlin and Crawford are in the middle of their training routine as they prepare for the upcoming track season and the World Championships in August.
Gatlin won Olympic gold in a personal best of 9.85 seconds. After stunning the world in Athens, Gatlin said he slowly subsided from his "cloud nine" and refocussed on traning hard.
"There's a big target on my back, I know," he said as he spoke of preparing for the World Champs in Helsinki, Finland.
"But I'm expecting a clean sweep from 100-400 metre by the U.S. at the World Champs," he said.
Graham has been responsible for a number of athletes' successes. He has been working with Thomas only two months now and a week ago he made a bold claim that Thomas would break Asafa Powell's national record of 9.87 this year. Though Thomas' personal best is way off at 10.11 seconds, Graham believes his training will transform Thomas into a lean, mean sprint machine. But Thomas was a bit more subdued about it.
GOING TO RUN FAST
"I'm not going out there to break any record; I'm just going to run fast," Thomas said.
"He (Graham) sees me in practice every day and knows my condition, so if he feels I can, then I guess I can. Train-ing with Shawn and Justin makes me push myself harder each day. The way I'm training with Trevor now, I've never trained like this before ... everybody's been waiting for a sub-10, so hopefuly that will be this season."
