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I want to do something special - Parchment

Published:Sunday | November 22, 2015 | 12:00 AMAndre Lowe
Parchment
Hansle Parchment
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His best time ever is 12.94 seconds. It's also the best time recorded by a Jamaican in the 110m hurdles, but if he has his way, Olympic and World Championships medallist Hansle Parchment will be making some adjustments to that record in the coming months.

It's one of his key ambitions, along with a gold medal, as he floors the pedal towards a new season, with the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro drawing ever closer.

Parchment rose from what seemed a lost season at one point to clock 13.03 seconds for second place behind Russian Sergey Shubenkov in the final at the IAAF World Championships in Beijing last August.

He simply seems to have a knack for turning up when it matters. Like in London at the 2012 Olympic Games where, out of nowhere, he dropped a then-national record of 13.12 to win a surprise bronze medal, becoming the first Jamaican medallist in the event at this level.

His 12.94 was the only bright spark during a miserable year, last year, when injuries and uncertainty were best exhibited in his disappointing fifth-place finish at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.

It looked like it was going to be another year of 'What ifs' for the 25-year-old from Cashew Bush in St Thomas, when, boom, 13.08 at the National Senior Championships showed he was ready before his Beijing run and confirmed his immense ability!

Still, Parchment, though pleased with his medal loot to date, is looking to add something a little shinier to his bounty and is hoping that an encouraging start to his background preparations will bring him closer to his aim of lifting Jamaican sprint hurdles to mind-boggling heights in quite the same way another towering Jamaican did in the straight sprints.

"My preparations for the coming season have been much better than previous seasons. I have been feeling good so far. My background training has been going pretty well and even my coach is impressed with the work that is being put in at the moment, so I'm quite pleased, and I feel if we can continue like this, we will have a very good season," Parchment told The Gleaner during a recent sit-down.

"I'm looking forward to just going out there and creating a storm in the hurdles. I feel that If I can do what I have in mind, I can somewhat change the view of hurdling worldwide in Jamaica," added Parchment. "We have a lot of youngsters coming up right now who are doing really well like Jaheel Hyde, Micahel O'Hara, and Omar McLeod, so I am really looking forward to Jamaica on a whole taking charge in hurdling."

Taking charge, for Parchment, also involves taking down his current personal best.

He won't share the time he has in mind, but it's there as a constant reminder and source of motivation in the back of his head, on a Post-it on his refrigerator and in a note on his cell phone. He wants to go fast in 2016 - really fast.

"I have some time objectives. I'm sure my coach (Fitz Coleman) has time objectives in his head as well. I have scribbled it down. I think about it every day: 'How am I going to get to this time? How much work I need to put in to get there?' Parchment shared. "I won't tell you the time right now, but it's my personal goal, and I am aiming for that."

Perhaps 12.80 seconds? After all, it is the world record.

A wry smile was followed by a telling: "I want to do special things, amazing things."

There's hardly a bigger stage than the Olympic Games. All things being equal, he will be heading to Rio next year with one eye on the top of the medal podium and another on the clock.