http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/sports/html/20061021T160000-0500_114313_OBS_ASAFA_POWELL_.asp
Asafa Powell
Spotlight on a champion - 100-m king speaks on life on and off the track
By Olivia Leigh Campbell Observer Staff reporter
Sunday, October 22, 2006
The way he flies down a 100-metre track, Asafa Powell makes running world-record times look easy.
He first broke the world record when he ran 9.77 seconds on June 14, 2005, in Athens, Greece, at the same venue where during the 2004 Olympics he finished a disappointing fifth behind arch-rival Justin Gatlin.
Gatlin, who later went on to cop the World Championship while Powell nursed a groin injury, also ran 9.77 this year, but shortly afterwards was found guilty of taking performance-enhancing drugs in April.
Asafa Powell poses with his parents
But just in case anyone thought Powell’s 9.77 was a fluke, this summer he did it again, blasting down the track at the Norwich Union British Grand Prix meet in Gateshead, England, on June 11 to create history as the first man to run the world record twice under 9.8 seconds.
And then, for posterity, he did it again.
On August 18 in Zurich, the 6’2" powerhouse from St Catherine blasted yet another 9.77 seconds, cementing his place in history as the fastest man on earth.
“I’ve had a good year,” he laughs, looking out over the training field at Kingston’s University of Technology. Powell, a second-year engineering student at the university, also trains there, as a part of the Stephen Francis-coached MVP Track Club that includes other top world athletes like Sherone Simpson and Brigitte Foster-Hylton.
Not like the rest
Powell with one of his rare indulgences, his Mercedes Benz with personalised plates showing his 9.77 World Record.
But even though Powell looks like every other student on the campus - T-shirt, jeans and baseball cap - he’s clearly not like the rest.
As the fastest man on earth this season, he’s pocketed a tidy sum (although he insists it is not as much as it seems), and that, plus his on-the-track achievements, have brought more attention than he probably would like to have.
Some attention he courts. He rolls onto campus in his only ‘blinging’ indulgence, a white Mercedes Benz, his “sporting car” with vanity plates that read ‘9.77 WR’. Who can help but look? Yet some attention is spontaneous. When he’s in class, random crowds - made up mostly of women - form at his classroom door. The increased attention is a byproduct of success he’s still getting used to, even though it now means changing his lifestyle.
“People attack me for money… more than anything else. I find that a lot of places that I used to go to, I just can’t try that now. Man follow me everywhere, and when I’m ready to leave, they want me ‘leave a ting’,” he sighs.
It’s not bad all the time, though, because for as many people that hit him up for cash, there are as many that just want to say hi, or congrats or something positive.
Those genuine people, he says, are the proverbial wind beneath his wings.
“When I’m on the circuit and I go onto that track and I hear ‘Jamaica’, I just think of all the people at home, watching, cheering me on, wanting me to do well. It feels like the whole Jamaica is running with me.”
If he feels that way, probably it is because he’s right. With each run this season potentially being a world record run, Jamaicans this summer followed his every move, some even dragging their eyes away from the football World Cup to witness history in the making. In the end, 12 legal sub-10-second clockings, including two 9.77secs, were just too spectacular to ignore.
Better year
“After this year,” he says, “I’m just pushed to make sure that next year is even better. If I can have another year like this or better, I’ll be good.”
A better year? Is that even possible? Before answering, he pauses for thought.
“Well, as you can see, right now there’s really no one left for me to beat,” he says, matter-of-factly, referring to Gatlin’s drug dismissal. There is nothing behind the zippery or arrogant about his tone. In fact, as he speaks about Gatlin, whose drugs test revealed high levels of the male hormone testosterone and invoked the prospect of being banned from the sport, his voice takes on a tone of annoyance.
Not glee, not gloating, just annoyance.
On August 22 the Olympic and world 100-metre champion struck a deal with the US authorities for up to eight years out instead of a life ban by agreeing to help the fight against doping.
Gatlin received his ban after testing positive for testosterone, his second doping offence, having first failed a drugs test in 2001 when amphetamines were found in his samples at the USA Junior Championships.
However, last month the 24-year-old American’s lawyer Cameron Myler said she does not expect his arbitration hearing on doping charges to be held this year.
“Actually, I was very surprised. I never really wanted him to be on drugs,” says Powell.
That’s because Gatlin was the only other man who presented a real challenge on the track, and this summer was shaping up to be one of intense competition between the two.
Powell set the pace by becoming Commonwealth champion in Australia in March. Gatlin hit back with his world-record-equalling run in Doha, Qatar, on May 12.
Easing up
Initially, reports were that Gatlin had broken the record, raising the stakes even higher. On May 28, the two ran in separate heats at the Prefontaine Classic in Eugene, Oregon, with Gatlin clocking the faster time of 9.88secs and Powell easing up at the end of his run to clock 9.93secs.
It wasn’t time for a head-to-head, all parties agreed.
But that head-to-head would never come.
Gatlin pulled out of the June 11 meet at Gateshead, and out of the Athens Grand Prix meet as well. He also pulled out of the London Grand Prix, citing injury concerns. But just days later, the news was out. Gatlin had tested positive.
“To tell the truth, I really wanted it (the race) to happen, because I thought a match-up with me and him would be truly great, something for the history books - the first time two men, both holding the world record go head-to-head,” Powell says, shaking his head. He hisses his teeth.
“Everyone in the world was looking forward to it, everyone was excited. When I heard about it I was disappointed. I never wanted him to be on drugs.”
It’s almost hard to bring up the topic of drugs with Asafa Powell, because although he hasn’t been a crusading anti-drug spokesman, his anti-drug statement is written loud and clear on test results. So far, he’s tested consistently clean. He’s been tested so many times in the past few years, he says, it has driven away what was once a healthy fear of needles.
“They test me at every meet. Sometimes I do 15, 20 drug tests in a year, but it’s ok. I just do them,” he shrugs.
He’s not afraid of drug tests, he says, because he simply does not do drugs.
No drugs
“Why would I? Every year since I’ve started training, I’ve run better and better - no drugs - so why would I bother? I’ve worked hard and people can see that work. No drugs. Actually, sometimes, if I say, break the meet record and they don’t have me recorded to be tested, I still go and ask them to test me, so nobody can question anything.”
So, if he’s not on drugs, what is it that makes Asafa Powell run so fast?
“I just eat. A lot of people ask what kind of food I eat, what amounts of carbohydrates, proteins and what not, but I just eat. Regular Jamaican food… chicken, dumplings, curry goat… dem kind of food.”
It’s not just the food, however. Powell’s success is a rare mix of talent, genetics, training and conditioning and good old hard work.
Powell was no track star during high school, although he did display the promise needed to be a champion. MVP coach Stephen Francis is generally credited for steering the young athlete’s career, and so far, the results are impressive, even to Powell himself.
“Your coach plays a major, major role in your career cause you have to have someone you trust completely working with you,” explains Powell. “From day one when I came here, he’s been there for me, always looking out for my best interests, always on top of things.”
It’s not always gravy though. Every now and then, says Powell, the two ‘ketch up’ usually over disciplinary matters.
“If I miss practice, he wants a reason. I give a reason, he wants a better one. When it comes to practice, he doesn’t want any small excuses!”
Luckily for Powell, the next few weeks will be downtime, time he says he’ll use to do all the things he can’t during the regular season. That includes tinkering with his cars (he owns two more cars, including a 2002 Accord being modified to race at Vernamfield), catching up on his accounting and spending time with friends and family.
“I really try to enjoy myself as much as possible, because when training starts back I don’t have time to do anything,” he says.
protective parents
Some of that time will be spent with his very protective parents at their home in St Catherine.
“We’re very close. No one can come between us. If two days pass and I don’t call them, my mother calls crying and upset, asking what’s the matter,” he says with an impish grin. “She worries too much. She can’t even watch me run - she gets too nervous. But my father is more relaxed, and he understands.”
Some of his R’n’R time will be reserved for his lady love, a 22-year-old psychology student of UWI who is also a student athlete, trying to make her mark in the long jump. Theirs is a serious relationship, he announces proudly, although he’s willing to let her define how serious.
“It’s her, she is the one… and I have plans, but I guess she’s not 100 per cent ready yet. I want to have a family, for my kids to see me running and know what their Daddy has done,” says Powell.
For right now though, everything is on pause. Even school. Having missed the first half of the semester while in Europe, his BSc has been pushed back another year, which means he still has about two-and-a-half years left at UTech.
When it starts again though, it will be all systems go.
“Yeah man,” he says convincingly. “I want to do years more, and keep coming out on top, y’know, get the Olympics, the World Championships, and of course, break the record again.”
Big plans.
“After all, licence plate can change… that’s the least.”
Asafa speaks on:
INJURY
I don’t really try to think about it, but I do try to prevent it. I just work hard on my weaknesses so that my whole body is strong. After that I guess I just go out thinking, “if I get injured I hope it happens at the beginning of the season so I can get better”.
Sabotage
I try not to be careless, so when we’re travelling I stick with my team members and try not to go around other athletes much.
Fame
I haven’t changed, it is just people’s approach to me that has. A lot more people know me now, people who didn’t follow track and field before, and people who don’t even know which event I run, but they know me.
Wealth
Everybody - especially my parents - is down on me everyday, so I don’t even get the chance to slip up and get wild. I give myself little enjoyments, but I don’t waste my money.
Role Models
Right now, there’s nobody else for me to look up to in my sport, so the people I look up to now are people who have done their thing and are now successful in their businesses.
Life after track
I want to make enough off this to have a life afterwards. I want my own business, so that I don’t have to work for anybody. I’m not sure what kind of business I want to do, but I think I’m going to invest in real estate. But I’m not worried. I have a lot of good people guiding me.
The circuit
The worst part is getting homesick. That and the whole heap of flying. Some places you get a chance to go out and look about the place a little, but not all the time. Sometimes you just go in, do the meet and leave. Sometimes, I don’t even know the names of the places I go to. I will leave there and someone will ask me ‘where are you coming from?’ but I really don’t know.