It has been one year since his forced retirement as an athlete, but Kemoy Campbell has found solace and has turned to coaching at Johnson and Wales University in north Miami.

Campbell, who turned 29 years old last month, was Jamaica’s greatest-ever distance runner who had to call time on his career after collapsing at the Millrose Games on February 9, 2019.

He still struggles to come to grips with the unfortunate incident in which he lost consciousness and a defibrillator had to be used to revive him. He woke up in hospital two days later.

Seven months after he announced his painful retirement on September 5, 2019.

“I have been pretty busy. I try to stay as busy as possible just so I don’t have to think about what happened or even think about the fact that I can’t even run again,” Campbell told the Jamaica Observer.

“Right now I am basically helping some organisations like heart foundations and try to distribute defibrillators,” he added.

“I have been coaching, trying to learn sprints and throws and trying to spread awareness for heart disease,” he added.

Campbell is the national record holder for the 3,000m, 5,000m and the 10,000m, and the Champs record holder in the 5,000m Open and the Class One 1,500m.

“I already know to coach distance. I just want to be like a coach who knows basically everything. I think that makes me more marketable for the future. I have distance runners that I am coaching but I still try to learn everything,” said Campbell.

He continued: “Right now I am coaching at Johnson and Wales University. I am a volunteer coach. I think it’s just like running, it’s a learning experience for sure.

“At the end of the day, if you like it you are going to be more involved and you are going to get your athletes to run faster and actually I like it a lot,” he noted.

“You learn a lot from the athletes as you see it from a different perspective. There were times you thought what the coach was giving you doesn’t sound right. But right now you realise it’s not that it doesn’t sound right, it’s just the mindset towards the workout and stuff like that,” he pointed out.

“So the coaching is definitely an eye-opener in different ways and I think at the end of the day, it still has me involved in the sport and that’s one of the things that I really want to be a part of. I am involved in the sport and helping people to be their best,” said Campbell.

The former Bellefield High School star, who became Jamaica’s first world-class middle distance runner, culminating with him being the first from the island to make the qualifying standard for both the World Championships and the Olympic Games, would love to one day coach in Jamaica, though he is not sure how feasible that would be.

“It is something that I have thought about. You know in Jamaica, Jamaicans can’t run distance races. Even when I was running, people were asking me why did I choose to do that and why am I doing it. But it’s something that I definitely thought about,” said Campbell.

“I think that if I could get a great job in Jamaica that pays well and I can make a living there, I would definitely think about coaching distance runners in the near future,” he ended.