EUGENE, Oregon – Former Mt Alvernia High star sprinter Kemba Nelson will return home to join the Reynaldo Walcott-led Elite Performance Track Club based in Kingston, it was announced earlier this week.

Nelson, who qualified for the women’s 100m semi-finals at the World Athletics Championships at Hayward Field, in Eugene, Oregon, last weekend, will join her close friend, five-time World Championships 100m champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce.

Nelson, who spent two years at the University of Oregon and completed her degree in applied economics in June, signed a three-year professional contract with German sportswear giants Puma recently, described the move as “a dream come true” in a recent interview with the Jamaica Observer.

The 22-year-old former ISSA Champs medallist who represented Jamaica at the junior level and also attended the University of Technology, Jamaica was second in the women’s 100m at the Jamaican national championships a month ago with a personal best 10.88 seconds (0.9m/s) — 10th fastest-ever by a Jamaican woman and fifth-best among women still competing.

Walcott, one of the fastest-rising coaches in the business and who had guided St Elizabeth Technical High School for years before leaving his alma mater to start his own club, told Jamaica Observer West, “We are happy to welcome Kemba to the Elite family.”

“We are excited about her prospects and we are delighted that she chose Elite Performance to continue the next stage of her athletic career,” he added.

While it has always been her dream to compete professionally, Nelson said she only started thinking it could become a reality “after I ran my first sub-11.00 seconds time last year”.

She had run 10.98 seconds at a meet at Texas A&M in 2021 and this she said fuelled the plan.

“I told myself I can do this,'” Nelson told the Observer West in an interview last week.

Meanwhile, Nelson, who ran three sub-11.00 seconds times at the Jamaican Trials last month, ran 11.10 seconds in the first round for third in her heat and an automatic spot in the semi-finals where the long college season caught up with her and she managed only 11.25 seconds for 19th overall.

Nelson, who won the 60m at the NCAA indoors in a then college record of 7.05 seconds in her first year at Oregon, was second in the outdoors 100m this year, after winning the PAC-12 sprint double and helping Oregon to the conference title.