Running in the Rain at the UTech Classic

Kingston-- Ten minutes into the UTech Track & Field Classic at the National Stadium in Kingston last night, the drama began. Olympic and World Champion gold medalists, Shelly-Ann Fraser and Usain Bolt, wouldn’t get the chance to dazzle the crowd by anchoring their 4x100 meter relays to victory. In both their races, which were the first two of the meet, there was a fumble in passing the baton between the first and second runners. For Fraser, her teammate at least picked up the baton and forced her to finish in last place but Bolt could just hold his hands to his head when he saw that his team, Racers Track Club was disqualified.

For the third consecutive year, the University of Technology (UTech) has held a track and field invitational meet at the national stadium, which is broadcast live to the country. Runners participated from prep school age to professionals and came from Jamaica, America, Ireland and Sweden. UTech is host to Maximum Velocity & Power (MVP) track club, home of medalists in both the Beijing Olympics and Berlin World Championships: Asafa Powell; Fraser; Melaine Walker; Shericka Williams, Sherone Simpson; Nesta Carter; Michael Frater & Brigitte Foster-Hylton, among others.

All the MVP athletes above, except Frater, were publicized to compete at the meet though they wouldn’t race in their specialties. There was no talk of Bolt competing at the meet. Instead, the country talked of him anchoring the 4x100 meter relay at the upcoming Penn Relays in Philadelphia and of his future international races as the track season started. So it was nice to see him standing at the line waiting to run in front of his country. However, that didn’t happen.

Although those were the only dropped batons of the event the drama continued for the night.

Jamaica has been suffering from a drought for seven months but last night that ended. First it drizzled, then rained, then poured and had a few lightening flashes for special effect. Just enough not to scare the people. Beijing Olympic gold medalist, Frater and Former Miss Jamaica, Yendi Phillipps were among the fans seated in the uncovered section of the Grandstand area who had to scramble for covered seating.

There wasn’t a lot of people sitting in either the Grandstand, or the less expensive bleacher section of the stadium, so meet officials decided to allow fans from the bleachers to sit in the Grandstand area. “Si ya, mi cyaan tek it when dem over ya,” said a woman when she saw hundreds of children and people sprint up the stairs of the Grandstand and climb over chairs in order to get seats. School children sat on top of their friends lap and leaned against railings to watch the meet. Around 4,000 people filled the Grandstand section.

“When you need rain you don’t get it, like in a test match or something,” said another woman talking to herself in disbelief. Even at a track meet, the West Indies cricket team couldn't escape their dismal performance in test matches.

The times clocked were slowed as runners had to be cautious on the track. Olympic and world champion, Walker ran 52.84 finishing second to Stephanie McPherson, of UTech, in the 400 meters. McPherson won the race at 52.48. Carter ran 10.24 in the 100 meters beating, Yohan Blake of Racers, who ran 10.28 . Carter’s time was one of three individual meet records set for the night. Nadia Alexander, of the University of the West Indies (UWI), put 16.03 meters in the shot put and Markino Buckley, of MVP, ran 50.49 in the 400 meters hurdles.

Beijing silver medalist, Simpson, beat world champion Foster-Hylton in the 100 meters with a time of 11.58. The rain was hazardous for Foster-Hylton who pulled up then slipped on the track about 60 meters in the race. She laid on the track for several minutes and was eventually taken off by a stretcher.

But the rain wouldn’t stop, the meet wasn’t canceled and the fans wouldn’t leave. It’s not often that an Olympic gold medalist and former Miss Jamaica sit in the stands with regular people. Frater and Phillips were sitting with their friends and escaped recognition for about an hour until a student from St. John Primary, of around nine years old, recognized them. The student was about 10 feet away and yelled out to his schoolmate, “A Michael Frater dat? His schoolmate, also around nine years old, was in the row behind Frater and was leaning on a table above the Olympian, so didn’t recognize him. “Mi noh see him,” he responded. “Si him deh.” When the young man realized he was above Frater he started to point to the Olympian’s head for everyone to know he was sitting amongst them.

With the current 100 meter world recorder holder finished for the night it was now time for Powell, the former world record holder, to hit the tracks. By the time he was at the line for the 200 meters it was raining heavily and the track was filled with puddles of water. It was the only race where the fans stood up to watch. There was no music, typical for meets at the stadiums, so people started to scream and blow their horns. Powell ran the first 150 meters at full speed then seemed to have a problem with his leg and jogged through the last 50 meters. Some fans, who seconds before were screaming their support for Powell, started to boo him for not winning the race in full flight. “A dis [disrespect] ting dat,” said a man behind me. But even with Powell jogging through the last 50 meters, in heavy rain, he was still able to finish ahead of American Travis Padgett at 21.27 seconds. Padgett finished at 21.34. Others in the crowd cheered for Powell and the cameraman spotlighted Phillips, who is dating the former world champion.

UTech has spent the last 19 years molding itself as the track center for collegiate athletics in Jamaica. No longer do promising high school track and field athletes have to go abroad if they want to compete in the sport in college. However, other educational institutions such as G. C. Foster College and UWI, whose athletic director is Olympic silver medalist Grace Jackson, will intrude on their dominance of track and field in the country. Next month, UWI will open their athletic stadium and the university will be the host facility to the Racers Track Club.

The meet continued to prove how crazy Jamaicans are for track and field. In the midst of lightening and what was hurricane like rain, children and adults were glued to their seats. They wouldn’t leave until they saw the last runner cross the finish line.

--Connie Aitcheson