Years ago she was the fourth string among Jamaica’s junior sprinters, but within a year, after joining Stephen Francis at MVP Track Club, Sherone Simpson broke loose. Simpson, who ran 12.54 in 2000, but entered MVP/University of Technology (UTech) as an 11.37 athlete in 2004, has raced up the ranks of Jamaica’s sprinting.
SheroneSimpsonBorn in Devon, a small district in Manchester, a Central parish of the island, Simpson first attended Christiana Leased Primary where she used to run around the schoolyard at lunchtime.
Charles Fuller, former Jamaica Amateur Athletics Association (JAAA) executive and Manchester High Track & field team manager in the 90’s, recalled Simpson as a little girl he saw running at a Primary School meet in the parish. “I met her at Kirkvine Sports Club in Manchester when she was 12, running Christiana Leased Primary and Pasley Lyn and I convinced her to attend Manchester,” Fuller explained. She has passed her Common Entrance to attend Knox College, but with Fuller’s and Lyn’s intervention, she was transferred to Manchester High.
Fuller said what caught his eyes was the familiarity between Simpson and Olympic 200m silver medallist Grace Jackson. He said, right away Simpson reminded him of Jackson, long legs and slim build.
At Manchester High, though she was there and about, she has never won an individual race at the National High Championships. She, however, was part of the Manchester team, which won the Class Four (Under-13) sprint relay in 1997.
She made a name for herself at the 2002 World Junior Championships, this after giving Jamaica a tremendous start in the women’s 4x100m relay. After a long debate between the coaching staff, it was finally decided on to select her over Nadine Palmer, but after the starter’s gun went, the coaches were left wondering if they made the right decision, as she was first out of the blocks, called for false start. However, on the second time of asking, Simpson held her nerves to give Jamaica a very good start, which resulting a gold and a national record.
She is the only athlete who was a member of both the Junior and Senior National sprint relay record quartets. At the 2002 World Junior, she teamed up with Kerron Stewart, Anneisha McLaughlin and Simone Facey to set a new record of 43.40 and in 2004, at the Athens Olympic, form alliance with Tayna Lawrence, Aleen Bailey and Veronica Campbell for the senior record of 41.73.On both occasions, Jamaica won its first sprint relay gold medal at those events.
She is also the youngest Jamaican Olympic gold medallist and the youngest Jamaican woman in an Olympic 100m Finals.
In 2003, she finished second at the Pan American Junior Championships in Barbados and helped her team to silver in the sprint relay, in her final year as a junior.
The following year, Paul Francis, brother of Stephen, recruited her at UTech and as suggested, like he did with Asafa Powell, coach Stephen Francis magic took charge. Simpson turned down a US college scholarship to joint Powell and Brigitte Foster-Hylton at the UTech-based MVP Camp.
The first sign of greatness came in Dominican Republic when she won the 100m event at the Felix Sanchez Invitational in 11.01 seconds, weeks after running 11.2 at the Gibson Relays in Kingston.
Simpson, a Hotel Tourism and Management student at University of Technology, later went on to book a place on Jamaica’s Olympic team with a second place finish at the National Championships. Though she failed to break the 11 seconds barrier in 2004, she went on to make the final and finish sixth at the Athens Olympic in 11.09 seconds.
In 2005, she broke the 11 seconds barrier once, running 10.97 for second behind Veronica Campbell at the National Championships, and again had to settle for sixth at the World Championships. She, did, however, helped Jamaica to second in the sprint relay.
However, despite reaching the finals at the Olympic (2004) and the World Championships (2005), Simpson is enjoying her best season this year. This is by far the season of her life, not only because she defeated Olympic 200m champion Veronica Campbell twice, first to win the Commonwealth title, not because she beat Sydney triple gold medallist Marion Jones (twice) and World 200m champion Allyson Felix, but because she broke a few barriers.
She has underlined her class, first with the Commonwealth Games 200m title, then with the national sprint double titles. It was at the National Championships in June that Simpson ran 10.82 seconds, the fastest in the world since Bulgaria’s Ivet Lalova’s 10.77 performance in 2004. It ranked her as the joint 12th fastest woman ever.
In the 200m, Simpson’s personal best of 22.00, which she did twice this season, improving on her previous best of 22.54, now places her fourth on the Jamaican all-time list, only behind Merlene Ottey (21.64), Grace Jackson (21.72), and Juliet Cuthbert (21.75).
Simpson, who was voted UTech’s sportswoman of the year for 2005, is presently the number one in the world, in both sprints, this after ending a very good Golden League Series.
The Commonwealth Games champion, Simpson, won four out of the six IAAF Golden League 100m races, just missing out on a share of the US$500,000 split between athletes who recorded five wins.
After running 11.30 to finish behind Bahamian Debbie Furguson (11.22) in Oslo and 10.98 behind American Marion Jones (10.92) in Paris Saint-Denis, Simpson bounced back with wins at the Golden Gala in Italy (10.87) to beat Jones (10.91), then 11.09 and 10.97, 10.92 to beat Me’Lisa Barber (11.25, 11.10 & 11.21) in Zurich, Bruxelles and Berlin respectively.
On the Grand Prix Circuit, Simpson ran 11.00 to win at the Norwich Union London Grand Prix London while finishing second behind Barber (11.08) in 11.12 at the Prefontaine Classic – Eugene. Her 200m races were also impressive, this as she repeated her 22.00 done at the Jamaica National Championships at DN Galan – Stockholm, Sweden.
These performances, along with her World Athletics Final success, Simpson looks certain to end the year as the IAAF Top Rank athlete in both the 100m and 200m sprints. She leads the 100m with 1382 points, ahead of Barber (1340) and the 200m with 1310 ahead of Kim Gevaert of Belgium (1308), which pushed three places up to 4th with 1389 points behind Meseret Defar (1397) and Tirunesh Dibaba (1394), both of Ethiopia and American Sanya Richards (1394).
Yearly progression: 2000 – 12.54; 2001 – 12.17 / 25.01; 2002 – 11.60 / 24.21; 2003 – 11.37 / 23.60; 2004 – 11.01 / 22.70; 2005 – 10.97 / 22.54; 2006 – 10.82 / 22.0
Career highlight: 2002 – 1st 4x100m World Junior Championships 2003 – 2nd 100m Pan American Championships 2004 – 1st 4x100m Olympic Games 2004 – 6th 100m Olympic Games 2005 – 2nd 4x100m World Championships; 6th 100m 2006 – 1st 200m, Commonwealth Games 2006 – 1st 100m, 200m, National Championships 2006 – 1st 100m World Athletics Final 2006 – 3rd 100m World Athletics Final
Sherone Simpson: Simpson was Jamaica’s lone female winner at the two-day World Athletics Final in Stuttgart.
On the first day, Simpson, who got off to a slow start, never recovered and beaten into third place of the 200m. She finished in 22.22 behind Alison Felix (22.11) and Sanya Richards (22.17).
She bounced back from her 200m defeat to beat Americans Torri Edwards and Felix to win the women’s 100m in 10.86 seconds, the second fastest time this season. Simpson’s victory, her sixth sub-11 clocking, is only bettered by Ottey’s 11 sub-11 seconds in 1991 as a Jamaican. She will close the 2006 season in Yokohama, Japan on September 24th.