PARIS, France:

AFTER A long, hard recovery process, Janeek Brown is happy to be on the biggest of stages and in a position to continue the growth she has displayed in the last few months.

Brown qualified for tomorrow’s women’s 100-metre hurdles semi-finals which begin on Friday at 5:05 a.m. Jamaica time. Reigning world champion Danielle Williams and national champion Ackera Nugent joined her in the semi-finals after successful qualifications yesterday.

Brown, who has restarted her career with MVP track club and only got back to serious training last November, has been going from strength to strength. At the national championships where she placed third, she referred to her comeback being ahead of schedule, with next year’s World Athletics Championships in Tokyo being the target.

However, she is enjoying the windfall of qualifying for the Games and feels she has every chance of making a final appearance.

“I feel really good. My aim was to avoid the garbage [repechage] round. So I feel good that I can improve my efforts for the semi-finals. That race, I was leading for a good while and then, technically, I hit a hurdle. With a cleaner race and a better start, hopefully Jamaica will have three in the final,” Brown said.

Still, being at the Olympics is a little surreal for Brown.

“I just started taking it seriously in November. I missed a lot of the background training. I was a regular civilian in November. We didn’t even know that we were going to get to this point, so I’m proud,” Brown said.

She may be grateful for the opportunity but she is resolute about getting to the final with coach Stephen Francis at the helm.

“I am confident because I am confident in my coach and he is confident that, if I execute the race, even though I am behind, anything can happen, because it is a hurdles race and nothing is for sure.”

“I wanted to not run because I wanted to dominate but he said that this is part of the process. But I am happy to be here.”

Daniel Wheeler