LONDON, England — It's been a long journey from Morant Bay, St Thomas, to Holland in the Netherlands for Kadene Vassell, a member of that European country's Olympics team, but it is a journey she is relishing.

The 23-year-old moved to Holland with her mother 12 years ago and while there her fledgling career took off and she has been a part of the national set-up for several years; from the junior ranks where she represented Holland at the IAAF World Junior Championships in Bydgoszcz, Poland, in 2008, to being a member of their 4x100m relay team.

In a brief interview with the Jamaica Observer yesterday, Vassell, a naturalised Dutch, said that while she has been able to keep in touch with close family members in St Thomas, being a full-time student/athlete she hardly has time to keep up with what is going on in Jamaican track and field.

After leading off the team to a national record 42.45 seconds in Thursday's first round, the athlete, who said she was still recovering from a back injury, got a very close-up view of the Jamaican women's 4x100m team in yesterday's final, where they finished sixth in 42.70 seconds.

Vassell has a personal best of 11.67 seconds in the 100m and 23.29 seconds in the 200m, and was part of the silver medal-winning Dutch team at the recent European Championships in Helsinki, Finland.