Seeing VCB at stadium is SFP’s lasting Champs memory

Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce will go down in history as one of track and field's most successful sprinters ever. With two Olympic 100-metre titles and five World Championship gold medals on her mantle, the diminutive Pocket Rocket is an elite athlete among elite athletes.

Back in 2004, while representing Wolmer's High School for Girls, Fraser-Pryce won her only gold medal at Champs when she took the Class Two 100-metre sprint. The following year, she won a silver medal in the 100 metres, beaten by her now MVP teammate Anneisha McLaughlin, who represented Holmwood Technical.

most enduring memory

Those memories are among the many she has from her days at Champs, but surprisingly, are not her most enduring. What is an even a bigger surprise is that it doesn't involve racing at all.

"I have many great memories from Champs. The one I will share was my first Girls' Champs in 2000. This was also the second time Boys & Girls' Champs were combined. I used to think that Primary Champs had a big crowd as it was the biggest track meet I had raced in up until then. So when I entered the stadium to run the 200m in Class Four and saw a completely full National Stadium, I wondered what was going on," she recalled with a laugh.

"I was in awe of the crowd and the noise. That was until I saw the Class One girls come into the stadium right behind us to also run the 200m, and I saw girls like Veronica Campbell, who I had only seen on TV, and now I was seeing them right next to me in real life. That memory will last forever."