MAKING OF CHAMPS: Former winners reveal how crowds prepared them for the world

Hundreds of passionate fans cheering loudly, coupled with the weight of expectation from your school, your family and your own ambitions is the triple dose of anxiety that athletes must navigate at the ISSA/Grace Kennedy Boys and Girls’ Athletics Championships (Champs).

It’s the largest school athletics festival this side of the world and has been known to make or break student athletes. While some go on to become elite athletes competing at the international level, others have languished behind, either physically or mentally drained never to return to the dizzying heights they achieved at the multi-discipline competition inside the National Stadium.

And no one knows the intimate taste of the thrill of victory or the agony of defeat than those who have raced, thrown, jumped in the throes of competition.

Former Champs stars Shericka Jackson, Roshawn Clarke and Serena Cole know firsthand what the culmination of months of training can bring and also what you can lose.

The Gleaner caught up with all three, as they took a break from their own training as professional athletes to enjoy the action unfolding at Champs 2026.

Jackson, formerly of Vere Technical, is a multiple medallist at the Olympics and World Championships, including 200-metre gold medals at the 2022 and 2023 World Championships and was part of Jamaica’s quarter mile relay team which struck gold in 2015, and she told The Gleaner competing at Champs helped to hone her into the elite athlete she is today.

“I think one of my best memories at Champs would definitely have to be my final year in high school in 2013 when I won the 400 and 200 metres. It was little or no pressure because back then I think Champs was a bit more fun than now. I think now Champs is very serious (chuckle). I think it was really, really good, especially the atmosphere and the crowd. When you see the crowd you become so excited and I think that prepares you for the bigger stage because you also go in a big arena where you have so many people. The crowd is so big and when everything goes silent you know it’s go time. So I think it prepares you well because Champs has the same atmosphere you get at the World Athletics Championship and Olympic Games.”

Jackson encouraged athletes to first think of themselves even as they seek to bring glory to the schools and their families.

“Just have fun and be yourself. Yes track and field is serious, but you also want to have fun doing it because when you get older sometimes injury will come and you will fall out of love with the sport so all the fun you can have now you must have it and just be yourself and be safe.”

Clarke smiled broadly as he recollected his years of representing Camperdown High at Champs.

“Well I have good memories and I have bad memories in the earlier days at Champs. My best memory is my record that I set the 400m hurdles (49.50 set in 2022). My worst time I think is when mi run 800m at Champs. I passed the line once (after 400m) and I just wanted to stop. Can’t pass the line more than once so yeah that would be my worst.”

For him those five years contributed significantly to the athlete he is today:

“I mean once you compete at Champs you can compete anywhere at all in the world because Champs is the first meet where you get accustomed to big crowds. Then you go to the World Championships and you see 70,000 people in the atands. If you are afraid of the crowd and you look up then your whole day gets shattered. Champs is the same thing. I would say Champs prepares you for the big stage as best as possible, good competition, well the best junior championship you can have in the world.”

He also offered advice to the junior athletes.

“Well I would tell them to continue to work hard. They’ve been running some super times, over both long and short distances, they’ve been jumping well. So I would say continue to work hard and continue to believe in your coach, believe in the process and you will prevail and be a champion eventually.”

Competing at champion school Edwin Allen, Cole has experienced the highs and lows of Champs.

“Best moment was Champs 2022 when I won the long jump, triple jump and 4x100m, that was first-year Class One I think. My worst memory of Champs was my last year 2023, when I pulled up in the semi-finals of the 100m,” she said.

She also told The Gleaner she had mixed feelings about how Champs has shaped her as an athlete.

“Well, coming out here as a junior athlete and seeing the stadium full is nothing compared to the senior level. Like it’s totally different, it’s a different feeling, everything about it is different. Coming out here at Champs when you younger you are told ‘the crowd a guh mek you feel nervous’. It prepares you for the senior level, but not that much because at the senior level the stadium is packed much more, many, many more people in the stadium than at the junior level.”

Cole’s experience makes her empathetic to today’s crop of junior athletes.

“Stay focussed. Work on anything, you need to work on in high school, because the senior level is way more difficult. You have to work way harder at the senior level, so stay focussed and do what you have to do,” Cole said.