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Kareem Streete-Thompson: Working for 2008

Kareem launches himself down the track at the
Truman Bodden Stadium

Streaking down the track during training

Kareem limbers up before training

Friday,  January 6, 2006

A stiff breeze had kicked up, and dark clouds leant a sombre atmosphere to the skies over the Truman Bodden Stadium, as out on the track, Kareem Streete-Thompson went about his training, all alone.

Kareem had certainly had more than his fair share of dark clouds in his athletics career, culminating in major hip surgery in October last year in order to reverse the damage caused by years of wear and tear on the professional athletics circuit. However, this 2006 is a new year, and with new goals ahead of him, Kareem is hopeful. 

He is making a clean start, moving to Gainesville, Tennessee, to set up his training base there. And although there is a lot of hard work ahead of him, he believes that in the next couple of years, he will show the Cayman Islands and the world what he is truly capable of.

From 1993 to 1999, Kareem competed for the United States, where he was born. However, for him these years were spiritually empty, as he had grown up in Cayman, and felt no real connection to the US. 

So in 1999, he made the shock decision to walk away from the US team, and represent this country.

It was not an easy decision, and one that cost him his Nike sponsorship. When he told them that he was going to represent the Cayman Islands, he was informed that this was not a focus market for Nike, and that they had no further use for him. However, he does not regret his decision for one moment.

“While I was competing for the US, I was having all this success, but I felt empty,” he said. “When I made the decision to come back, it was ecstasy. It felt good,” 

Kareem’s decision to forfeit the long jump, in which he claimed Cayman’s first Commonwealth Games bronze medal back in 2002, has surprised many. However, Kareem relates his decision to what happened during the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens.

In his round one heat of the 100 metres in Athens, Kareem lined up with US superstar Justin Gatlin. 

However, at the 60-metre mark, he looked around, and found himself in the lead. Knowing that he would qualify for the second round, he coasted to the finish line, to take second in his heat.

“I literally jogged 10.15!” Kareem recalls.

He was delighted with his time, a season’s best for him, especially as he knew how much he still had in reserve. If he was to push all the way to the line in the second round, nothing could stop him from making it through to the semi-final. And once you are in the semis, anything can happen. 

However, Kareem made the mistake of looking at the video recording of his heat. What he saw troubled him. He noticed that his hips were a little high in his set position. As he lined up for his second round heat, his starting position weighed heavily on his mind. 

However, lining up with Maurice Greene on his shoulder, he was certain that he could take everyone, except maybe for Greene. As he moved into his set position, he thought about his high hips in the first heat, and sank back in the blocks. And as he started sinking back, the gun went.

“The gun went off, and I was going backwards,” says Kareem, the pain of the memory still deeply etched on his face.

For a moment, he imagined that the blocks had sensed his movement before the gun, and that it would be called a false start, which meant that he did not push out with as much force as he should have. However, although his body had moved, his feet had not, and the start was good. But not for him. 

Had he merely repeated his time from round one, he would have been through to the semi-finals. And he knew he was capable of much faster. But because of one small mistake, Kareem finished in fifth position in his heat, and forfeited a certain spot in the semi-finals.

“I cried like a baby. My coach couldn’t even look at me. I knew this had been my moment, and I had blown it. At that moment, I knew that I had made the transition from being in love with the long jump to being in love with the 100.”

After a recovery from surgery that was nothing short of miraculous, Kareem is back on the track, preparing for the 2006 Commonwealth Games.

“Every day is planned out in my head, up to 19 March when I compete at the Commonwealths,” he said.

However, the Commonwealth Games are only the first step in Kareem’s three-year plan.

In 2006, he will prepare for the Commonwealth Games, in 2007 for the World Championships, and in 2008 for the Olympic Games in Beijing.

He readily admits that, in order to perform at these events, he will have to train exclusively for them, and will have to limit any other competitive outings. However, with the right training, Kareem knows that he can regain the form he had at the 2004 Olympics. And this time, there will be no mistakes.

For Kareem, the Beijing Olympics in 2008 will signal the end of a long and hard road.

“When I walk off the track in 2008, that is the end. Hopefully I would have figured out what role I can play here in Cayman, what role I can be effective in,” he said.

What he does know, is that he wants to help other Cayman athletes to follow in his footsteps, and then go even beyond what he achieved. However, he knows that this will be an even harder road to travel than his professional athletics career.

“My number one nemesis is going to be the minds of these kids,” he said. “Their hearts and minds. Getting a kid to see that there are rewards, not just financial but intrinsic rewards, for coming out here to train at the hottest time of day.

“Getting kids to step out of that comfort zone is going to be a major obstacle. To step out of that cocoon and be lost for a while… that’s going to be fun.”

And not for the first time during the interview, Kareem throws his head back, and laughs. In spite of all the hard work ahead of him, Kareem is happy, and dearly loves what he is doing.

As he talked about the future, the grey clouds subsided, to be replaced by bright sunshine. Kareem firmly believes that the sun will also shine over the next three years of his career. And if he is anything like his idol Carl Lewis, we may yet see the best of what Kareem Streete-Thompson has to offer.

eugene@caymannetnews.com

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