Until we meet again ...

So the IAAF World Youth Championships is now over and it's almost time to start my marathon journey back home.

I can say it was an amazing experience and the kids did themselves, their families, schools and the nation proud with their performances.

Wow ... nine medals; four gold, one silver and four bronze makes this our best showing at this level and they (athletes) all deserve tremendous praise; along with their coaches here and at home, as well as the management team.

It's all about Jamaica in Lille, everybody seems to want to be us.

The stadium was filled with a lot of Caucasian kids walking around in Jamaican team gear on yesterday's final day of competition here in Lille. They were speaking, but it wasn't English and it sure as hell wasn't patois either.

If I didn't know better, I would have thought that Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association president Howard Aris was pulling a Captain Horace Burrell (Jamaica Football Federation president) and importing athletes from other countries.

Turns out that our gear has been in such high demand that our athletes - being the innately good hustlers that we are as a people - started to pass on some of their stuff to athletes from other countries; for a 'little change' of course.

Actually, it was quite amusing to see the transactions taking place and the market was definitely ripe.

"Hundred euro!" there goes a bag; "60 ... too much? 50 then, 'caah duh nutten else fi yuh bredda'," a team jacket was being negotiated.

Train and prepare

Had a nice little chat with the IAAF's Yannis Nikolaou in the media centre yesterday. Yannis actually thought he needed to "warn" me that he, too, will be running in that media 800m in Daegu, South Korea, during the IAAF World Championships in Athletics and that I should "take the few weeks remaining to train and get ready for me".

Pffffft ... I'm not perturbed by threats and mind-games Yannis, I'll see you in Daegu; no further comments until then!

So, on another note, I decided to list my top five favourite anthems after listening to so many of them over the last few days.

1. Jamaica - what else did you expect?

2. Kenya - amazing brass instrumental.

3. South Africa - I have always loved their anthem, always causes me to envision Nelson Mandela for some reason.

4. USA - Got to admit, it's not a bad anthem at all.

5. France - very regal and stately.

Before I sign out, I must make special mention of our 2011-12 track and field programme sponsors, who have partnered with us on our groundbreaking 14-month non-stop athletic coverage dubbed 'Daegu to London'.

Special thanks to the lovely team at Supreme Ventures Limited (minus Brian George and Andrei Roper - nothing lovely about them), who have been with us from day one. Thank you to Sonia Davidson and Carlene Edwards, as well as everyone else who made it possible.

To our partners and friends from PUMA, who are on board in a big way and have been very close to our planning and execution. Thank you to the team here in Jamaica as well to our European-based 'allies'.

Two meets down ... many more to come. Stick and stay with The Gleaner for all things athletics, and we'll see you in Daegu.