Fans at Champs 100 share a common bond with their predecessors from every generation. Like almost all of those who went before them, they will leave Champs certain that they would’ve seen a future Olympic or World Champion.

Those who’ve been present recently have proof of this process with the emergence of the likes of Usain Bolt, Melaine Walker, Veronica Campbell-Brown and Shelly-Ann Fraser racing into prominence.

The fans who watched A S Wint win in Class One, Two and Three for Calabar might not have been surprised when the leggy youth blossomed into Arthur Wint, 1948 400-metre Olympic champion. Those who watched Calabar’s Dennis Johnson speed past his Champs rivals at Sabina Park in 1958 might have said, ‘I told you so’ when reports arrived of his 100-yard world records in 1961.

Champs fans saw more champions in waiting in the 1960s. The Kingston College machine delivered super sprinters Lennox Miller and Rupert Hoilett. Miller won three Class One sprint doubles and by the time the 1968 Olympics rolled around, he dashed all the way to second place in the 100 metres. Hoilett won the Class One 440 yards three times and, with Kingston Technical’s Una Morris and Neville Myton of Excelsior (XLCR), made the 1964 Olympic team as a high school student.

Miller’s rivals included a group who would become stalwart internationals. Mike Fray and the late Clifton Forbes, stars for STATHS and KTHS, respectively, would join him on world-record setting 4×100 teams at the 1968 Olympics.

The lead off man of that team, Errol ‘Kid Flash’ Stewart of Trench Town and XLCR emerged in the years after Miller left KC. Stewart’s main rival Donald Quarrie of Camperdown, had fans predicting glory. They were right. Quarrie had a glittering career culminating in Olympic gold.

In the years when Quarrie dominated the world, Girls’ Champs was producing a steady streamer of swift sprinters. Jacqueline Pusey of St Mary’s High strode powerfully into the 1976 Olympic 200 semi-finals. While injuries put paid to international careers of Hoilett and Trevor ‘TC’ Campbell, Rosie Allwood and Pusey blossomed.

A week before the incandescent 1979 Boys’ Champs, Merlene Ottey of Vere Technical broke Pusey’s Girls’ Champs records and started her journey to two World 200-metre titles, a pile of Olympic medals and world records for the indoor 60 and 200 metres.

If you missed Girls’ Champs in the ’70s and ’80s, you would’ve missed your first look at Morant Bay’s Juliet Cuthbert, Clarendon’s Sandie Richards and the St Jago pair Michelle Freeman and Juliet Campbell. Cuthbert migrated early but returned to win double Olympic silver in 1992, while Sandie, Michelle and Juliet all became World Indoor Champions and World Championship medallists.

During this period, Camperdown’s Raymond Stewart zipped from his 1983 and 1984 Class One sprint double to the Olympics. Third in the 1987 World Championships, he became the first man in history to reach three Olympic 100-metre finals. Winthrop Graham was even better. Graham, winner of a 400/400 hurdles double for STETHS in 1984, placed second in the hurdles at the 1992 Olympics and the 1991 World Championships.

Both had the look of champions at Champs.

The super sprinter of the ’80s was Beverly McDonald. The Vere Technical speedster set records at will and went onto to relay gold at the 1991 World Championships and an individual silver medal in the 200 in 1999.

The Girls’ Champs production of stars kept on rolling in the ’90s with Nikole Mitchell of St Mary’s High, Gillian Russell of Campion and Vere’s Merlene Frazier, but the boys joined in again. Greg Haughton, Davian Clarke and Michael McDonald emerged early in the decade, winning at Champs for XLCR, KC and Vere. By 1995, they became the core of a 4×400 team that would bring high level medals to Jamaica for the best part of a decade.

Long-striding Haughton established candidacy to join the group of Jamaica’s finest 400 runners by winning an Olympic bronze medal, achieving a world number one ranking and by twice placing third in the World Championships. Known more for his relay heroics, Davian was an Olympic 400-metre finalist in 1996 and 2004.

Arising in this decade were the products of a buoyant Manning’s programme. Trecia-Kaye Smith and Vonette Dixon dazzled slightly larger Girls’ Champs crowds in the early 1990s. Smith became Jamaica’s first field event World Champion when she won the triple jump in 2005, while Vonette has reached three World Championships finals in the 100-metre hurdles.

With the likes of Bolt, Walker, VCB and Fraser, it might seem that Champs winners will be international champions. It isn’t that simple. The great Herb McKenley, a Calabar athlete in the late ’30s and early ’40s, was almost always beaten by Leroy ‘Coco’ Brown of Wolmer’s. Bert Cameron of St Jago was beaten in one of the great 1979 races by Ian Stapleton of KC, 46.5 to 46.2 over 400 metres. By 1983, Cameron was world number one and World Champion.

Michael Blackwood, world number one in the 400 in 2002 after his Vere Tech days, and Olympic silver medal winner Danny McFarlane passed in and out of Champs well nigh unnoticed in an era where Calabar’s Daniel England ruled the roost.

Even more invisible was James Beckford. Like McFarlane, he competed for Ocho Rios High, but Beckford migrated early. When he appeared, he was on his way to Olympic and World silver medals in the long jump.

The same goes for former Vere student-athlete Deon Hemmings, the 1996 Olympic 400 hurdles winner, Lorraine Fenton, formerly of Manchester and later an Olympic/World 400 medal winner and Olympic relay gold medallist Nesta Carter. None of them won at Champs.

No one knows if recent stand-outs like Yohan Blake, Anniesha McLaughlin, Ramone McKenzie, Bobbi-Gaye Wilkins, Keiron Stewart and Jura Levy will go all the way. There’s only one thing you can be sure of. Fans at Champs 2010 will be certain they are watching champions of the future. Only time will tell if they are right.

HUBERT LAWRENCE is the author of Champs 100 – A History of Jamaican High School Athletics. He has covered local and international track and field since 1987.