WITH two high-profile athletes walking out of the MVP camp in recent times, Asafa Powell, the man whose name is synonymous with the club, said he has no intention of leaving despite rumours of a mass exodus.

Last December, Michael Frater, a founding member of MVP and now third vice-president of the Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association (JAAA), switched to Racers Track Club after a fallout with head coach Stephen Francis.

Then within the last two weeks, Olympic 400m hurdles champion Melaine Walker packed her bags and walked, also joining rival club Racers, again following a fallout with Francis.

Walker, in several interviews, cited Francis’s broken promise and dictatorial behaviour as some of the main reasons for her departure.

But Powell, the former 100m world record holder, who basically single-handedly put MVP on the map, said he is going nowhere and gave his piece on the issue.

“I never considered switching. I think the main problem is that people don’t really try to find out exactly what is going on,” said Powell.

He continued: “You can’t go anywhere else in the world and find a coach who begs you to train. Coach (Francis) is the one that does that, that’s why he has so many successes. He begs you to train and he will find you wherever you are that’s why people will say that he is aggressive. He loves his job and he wants you to do well… nowhere else in the world you will find that.

“I am not bias. I only know the reason why Michael Frater left, I don’t know the reason for Melaine, so I can’t comment on that,” said Powell, while representing LIME at a Penn Relays sponsorship function last Friday.

“But for Michael, he had no choice but to leave, they had a fall out. But he is still working very hard, he is still my teammate, we still competing for the same country, we still talk every day and hang out everyday,” noted Powell, who along with Frater, were part of the quartet that broke the 4x100m relay world record in 2008 at the Beijing Olympics.

Powell, with a best of 9.72 seconds, and the man with the most sub-10-second clocking of approximately 80 times, said without Frater, the camp is not the same.

“The atmosphere in the camp is not the same because he was pretty much my training partner. We train together, that’s when I feel most comfortable when he is there training with me. But I have to do without (him)… I have been training with him for like 10 years now, so that transition is a bit different, but we have to do what we have to do,” Powell explained.

Powell’s new training partner is Nesta Carter, but according to the speedster, Frater is irreplaceable.

“I have to lean on Nesta right now,” he said with a smile. “Everyone in the club is still very close, but the type of friendship that me and Michael Frater had, you can’t really find that any more in the club. Nesta is there and doing very well, so hopefully he can push me,” said Powell.