Tovea Jenkins aiming for the big stage ... again

Olympian Tovea Jenkins says age is just a number. As the SprinTec 400 metres runner readies herself for next week’s National Championships, she is using super sprinter Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce as an age defying model and is working her way back to the top level of the sport.

On Saturday at the JAAA All-Comers meet on the track at Jamaica College, Jenkins tested herself in an unofficial hand-timed 52.6 seconds.

“I think the fitness is good. I’ve been working real hard this season. It has been a slow season because of injuries in the previous season but I feel like I’m fit. I feel like I’m ready and I just have to go out there and execute,” said the 2021 Olympic Games mixed relay finalist.

Her times are trending downwards. In her three earlier 400m races, she has gone 52.66, 52.33 and on June 17, 52.15 seconds.

The slim speedster is optimistic about her upcoming races against the likes of Stacey-Ann Williams, Charokee Young and Candice McLeod and five-time World finalist Stephenie McPherson.

“I feel like if I go out there and put together a good race, I feel like I’ll be up there with the other girls,” the former Herbert Morrison High and Johnson C Smith University star estimated.

She may have to better her personal best – 50.88 seconds – to get among them as her Olympic relay teammate Williams, Nickeshia Pryce, Young and McLeod have already broken 51 in 2023, with times of 50.12, 50.23, 50.45, and 50.80, respectively.

In any case, the World Athletics Championships qualifying standard is exactly 51.00 seconds.

Jenkins twice finished second for Johnson C Smith in the NCAA Division 2 Championships and was a finalist at the 2018 World Indoor Championships. However, she rates the Olympics as the highpoint in her track and field career.

“That was one of my biggest achievements yet, and it was just something out of this world. It was a good experience and I’m just hungry for more,” she said, brimming with excitement.

The big meet calendar contains this year’s World Championships in Budapest, Hungary, August 19-27, the Olympics in Paris in 2024 and another World Championships, scheduled for September 2025 in Tokyo, Japan.

“Opportunities, I see opportunities,” she said positively. “I think I’m getting a little older now. I’m 30 but age is just a number. Shelly-Ann is doing it so I feel like I can do it as well, so I’m just optimistic, just keep working and anything is possible,” she said, with a nod to Fraser-Pryce who at age 34 won her sixth individual World Championship gold medal last year.