MONTEGO BAY, St James — The difference between good athletes and those who go on to make a big impression is their mindset after gaining initial success, says Bruce James, president of the powerful MVP Track and Field club.

James has had a front row seat over the past decade or so as the Kingston-based MVP has produced a series of sprinters who have reached very high levels, including former World Record holder Asafa Powell, Olympic and World champions Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and Rio Olympics double sprint champion Elaine Thompson.After gaining that initial success, athletes must be prepared to work even harder, James told the media launch of the third Cornwall College Old Boys health fair and 5K road race at the school’s chapel on Tuesday.The health fair, which is open to the public, will be staged at the school’s campus today, while the 5K road race will start and finish at the school’s main playing field on Sunday morning, May 28.“To become the best in the world, to break a world record and Olympic record and win Olympic medals, and World Championship medals and to be the best in the world, all the athletes admit they have to work hard and that’s what has happened,” James said.“But there is a trick (as) a number of the athletes when they get to the position when they are the best in the world and the best in their event, something strange happens… they feel they have arrived and they go into cruise mode.“They start to relax and say ‘hey I am on top of the game’ and their game doesn’t get any better, and in fact they start to fall off. Or they do what Elaine Thompson and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce does — when they achieve they want more and actually work harder that they worked to get there. Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce has been known for saying she has to work harder to keep it than to get there,” said James.He pointed out that Thompson, the joint National Record holder in the 100m at 10.70 seconds, fifth-best all-time and the best female sprinter in the world the last two seasons and unbeaten over the 100m since last year, is a late bloomer who never achieved much as a junior athlete.“Elaine never won a medal at Champs, her best place was fourth; she never made the CARIFTA Games team. But it was as a senior at the University of Technology that she made a senior team as a reserve on a Central American and Caribbean Games,” he pointed out.James then chronicled her meteoric rise since 2015 when she won a silver medal in the 200m behind Dutch star Dafne Schippers at the World Championships in Beijing, China.“That’s when she started to get the contact and that was when she started working harder, and that led to the double gold in Rio and silver on the (4x100m) relay team. But she has started working even harder, she has been busy and is not easing up,” James noted.