Jevina Sampson is a special talent

Sep 08, 2010 Sports

---

– athlete must get elite attention

By Edison Jefford
In every generation there has always been that one athletic talent that will bear with them such a captivating and sensational future that all the tenets of stardom would be so pellucid that there is no doubt that the particular athlete would achieve great things.
For contextualisation, there is no reason to venture out to the Caribbean and wider world where a host of athletic talents have emerged in every generation. In Guyana, there have been an apparent abundance of athletes who could have achieved global acclaim.

In the recent history, the early, mid and late 1990s to be exact, there was Andrew Smith, Loriann Adams, Vish Sukhmangal, Arron Fraser, Anton Francis, Deon Barker, Quame Caesar, Tai Payne and maybe Rawle Greene, just to name a few talented athletes.
The graveyard of athletics talent in Guyana is full of athletes that could have easily imposed this country on the map of track and field powerhouses. But unfortunately, for varying reasons, only a few including Aliann Pompey and Marian Burnett had chances.
The point is that as the renaissance continue in local athletics, everything must be done to ensure that talents such as Jevina Sampson, who is a special and sensational talent, has each opportunity necessary to maximise her obvious exceptional athletic ability.
This 11 year old athlete has not yet specified in any event and rightly so, but she has had success in every event from the 200m to 800m races that are really unmatched at her age. Sampson came through the annual National Schools’ Championship system.
She is now in a class of her own.  Last year, at 10 years old, Sampson completely annihilated the field in the Under-12 Girls’ 400m race and brought second in the 200m, which was after she took home two U-10 silver medals in the 400m and 800m in 2008.
Sampson has shown consistent improvement that has her ranked among the U-20 girls after some brave performances this year; at one of the Development Meets at Eve Leary, she took the 800m U-17 race with authority in an impressive 2:40.00 seconds.
As destiny would have it, the extremely talented Sampson placed second in the 800m at an Inter-Guiana Games trial in 2:30 seconds. The much older, and seasoned, Jenella Jonas was the winner of the race in the event that was held at the Enmore Community Centre.
Sampson made the Inter-Guiana Games team but was unable to travel to French Guiana because of her Secondary School Entrance Examination. Her performance at the trials meant that she was capable of competing against the U-20 girls in the 800m race.
In fact, apart from Jonas, the only other two athletes that have gone faster than the 11 year old so far this year are Alika Morgan and CARIFTA gold medallist, Jevina Straker. None of them have run under 2:25, which meant that Sampson is right there with them.
Even in the 400m, the Christ Church Secondary School first former has a 63 seconds best time at the Hampton International Games that gave her a silver medal in the 400m U-13 race; the time is faster than the 64 seconds that Neisa Allen ran in Linden last week.
Sampson, who recently returned from the Youth Olympic Camp in Singapore, sat down with this newspaper for an interview on Monday. She spoke to Kaieteur Sport about her experience on the tour, her career and what motivates her as a promising athlete.
“The experience [in Singapore] was great. I have never seen anybody in Guyana run like athletes I saw there. I know if I put my mind to it, I can run like that,” an articulate Sampson said, adding that she was able to do some training and sightseeing while there.
Asked why she is so optimistic about track and field, the obviously smart student-athlete stated at a flash that, in her view, the sport allows a person to be better in several areas. She said that some of the things she learnt in athletics she would have not known naturally.
“Track and Field makes a person better than anything else,” she believed, before indentifying her primary goals as “getting a scholarship, competing at the Olympic Games and breaking all global records in my events”. At 11 years old, those are huge aspirations.
But one gets the feeling when they are speaking to Sampson that they are actually speaking to an athlete who is ahead of their time. She rarely stutters, she understands questions perfectly and her answers are always prepared as if she knew the questions before.
This Running Brave Athletics Club athlete cannot be taken for granted. Her talent is too precious and as she said, “I have to put my mind together, focus and work hard. I am very confident and I am excited too because it’s a great feeling to have a gift in life”.
Sampson’s motto is easy; it’s one of the motivators for athletes all over the world. She believes if she trains hard she will win easy and she certainly has been winning quite easily. Sampson’s next assignment will be the National Schools’ Championship in November.

---

---