‘Retiring’ McPherson aims at 21-year-old national record

AS BEFITS an athlete of vast experience, Stephenie Ann McPherson has the air of someone who has seen everything track and field has to offer. However, the five-time World Championships 400-metre finalist still has big goals and none of them is bigger than her wish to break the national 400-metre record.

The mark, 49.30 seconds by Lorraine Fenton, will turn 21 on July 19. McPherson clocked 49.34 seconds in her Olympic semi-final race in 2021, which she describes as the best year of her career.

“2021 when in my semifinals I got the instructions just to run the first 300, I think I would have broken the national record, but unfortunately in the final, I got hurt. But I am grateful,” McPherson recounted of her performances at the 2021 Olympics.

“That year was my best year,” she said.

She followed up with a bronze medal at the 2022 World Indoor Championships where she moved Jamaica’s indoor record from 50.93 by Sandie Richards to 50.79. “Oh, and last year, World Indoors, that record was there for a very long time. Even if I never medalled, all I wanted to do was to break the national indoor record and I did that,” said McPherson.

Nothing seems to bother the 34-year-old athlete.

“I’ve been doing this for a very long time. I think this year is my last year. I mean I had a little mishap earlier. I just started training, four weeks in training and I’m just taking it one day at a time, or one meet at a time,” the MVP Track Club stalwart proffered.

Asked for the secret to her calm disposition, she replied, “It’s the people around me that make it so easy. I mean, they believe in me and that is one plus. As an athlete, you need people around you to push you. That’s what keeps me going.”

Retirement is on the horizon.

“I said that maybe this year is my last year. I don’t think I want to come back. This year should be my last year.”

If she does follow up on this urge, McPherson will leave as one of Jamaica’s best 400-metre runners. She has a bronze from the 2013 Worlds, gold from the 2014 Commonwealth Games and helped Jamaica to record a famous victory over the United States in the 2015 World Championships in the 4x400-metre relay.

On the clock, only Fenton and Shericka Williams, at 49.32, are ahead of her on the all-time Jamaica performance list.

Despite all that, three national titles and an Olympic relay medal from 2016, McPherson still has one goal left, Fenton’s national record.

“I’m not going to put any pressure on myself. If it comes, it comes, but I would love that before I go.”