Trusting the process
BUDAPEST, Hungary – Jamaica’s World Championships 200m champion and second-fastest woman over the distance, Shericka Jackson, says she is going to allow the process to lead her to the world record and she will not allow it to get the better of her.
Jackson, who ran a Jamaican national record 21.45 seconds (0.6m/s) to win the event at last year’s World Championships at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon, says her hard work will get her there.
Her clocking in Eugene was 0.11 seconds off the world record 21.34 set by American Florence Griffth-Joyner in 1988, six years before Jackson was born.
Jackson, who was speaking to journalists at a press conference put on by the Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association and main sponsor Puma in Budapest, Hungary, said while thinking about breaking the record is not a hindrance, she will not dwell too much on it.
Using Kenya’s multiple world record holder Faith Kipyegon as a reference, Jackson said, “I’ve always like watch her press conferences where just talk about what you wanted to achieve. I don’t think every time she goes in a race she goes like, oh, she had been working towards it.
“For me, I think when I will on stuff too long, I tend to forget the importance of how to get there. So it’s not that I definitely have it at the back of my head, but I’m not going to go in every race, every 200, I’m like, ‘Oh, if I do this, then’… no, once I’m in pretty good shape, once I’m happy, once my mental aspect is intact, then definitely it will happen.”
Jackson acknowledged she got within touching distance last year, however.
“I put together a proper 200m last year. Yes, I dwelled on it a little too much last year, and I think I’ve missed it by a little bit,” she told the members of the media.
“And I think I went back to the drawing board and I read some of what I wrote, like how I got there and I said, ‘okay then, I need to cut back on some things.
“So it’s not like I’m not thinking about it, but I’m not going to dwell on it. Of course, if I execute a good race it definitely will come, but I’m not going to go into the race and then I forgot everything to put together to break the word record. It’s not that I have it at the back of my head, but it’s not at the front of my head,” she explained.
Jackson ran a season’s best 21.71 to win the 200m at the Jamaican national championships in early July, the second-fastest time in the event in the world.
She surprised herself after running 21.86 to win the Monaco Diamond League on July 21 at the end of a four-race stretch in just over a week.